No Time

Life is full of instances where time is all.

Take dating, for instance. If I were a woman dating a guy, I wouldn't date him for longer than eighteen months. Unless he committed to marry me, that is. Eighteen months is an important period, because it's about the longest a guy can go and not reveal his underlying personality. Addictions, fears, mental illnesses, unpleasant quirks and other relationship killers are extremely difficult to hide when you see that person consistently for that kind of period.

The commitment to marry, by the way, should be his to make, and yours to accept. The fact that he is willing to provide a ring and a date is but a start. When he does that, you then must consider carefully whether you're willing to accept all of his character traits. For the love of yourself and your possible children, say NO if he has anything you think you can correct.

Take note, ladies: you cannot. Once a guy's over twenty, change is only his to make.

Saying NO is oftentimes the best response if the guy falls short in any way from the best idea you have in mind. Making that choice is probably the most important decision any woman can make. Unfortunately, the notion that love will make things better, or that he'll change, or that you will be able to overlook stuff for a lifetime is widespread. And all the more wrong for being popular. My evidence? All the divorces, broken families and non-existent homes, where one parent, usually the father, is absent.

The expression "pushing on a piece of string" comes to mind as I write this. Like most people, I've had to learn all of the lessons about the wrong people the hard way. Without some kind of guide, it's impossible to do otherwise. The biggest take-away I can offer is that it's always better to be alone than with the wrong person, and that new people are always just around the corner...but often out of sight.

Bottoms Up, Tick-Tock.

Dating Ideas

If you have found and fancy a new person, let's think about some better dating techniques. Not that you're horrid at dating, of course, but as with any skill a little forethought will improve the outcome. Here are three ideas.

Give Your Brain Time

Number one on my list is that if this truly is a new person in your life - not an acquaintance morphing into something else - it will take time for your brain to absorb all the new information they provide. Dating is only partially about physically being with the person. Processing what you see and hear is just as important.
 
Think of it this way: we sleep not for our body, but for our mind. Sleep is its sorting and filing time. As powerful as the human brain is, it turns out that connecting the internal dots takes a while. In an arena as complex as romance, where sexuality, family, morality, money and putting out the trash are involved, discovering how the newbie fits into your abstract internal life will take a few moons. Allow that to happen.

The takeaway: Time. Take some.


Allow For Upsides and Downsides

No-one's perfect. And no-one is perfect for you. Compromise is realistic. Finding the right person is about knowing what your absolute must-have's are, what the nice-to-have's are, and what doesn't matter. If you love dogs and couldn't imagine a life without them, don't contemplate someone who only likes cats. If you're happy dancing to Sinatra at home on a Saturday night, don't pretend a club-hound will suit you. Filtering is good; filtering is the essence of dating.

The takeaway: Prioritize your needs and desires.


Dates Need a Beginning and an End

Dating is an extended job interview, at least initially. Have you ever been to a thirty-minute job interview and ended up hanging out with the gang for the night? No, you haven't. So let's structure our dates in a similar fashion, with some concrete activity - even if it's simply meeting for coffee - and a specific end time, which you communicate to your date.

This will be as easy as:  

Great, let's have lunch, but I'll have to leave at 2:00 because I have an astrophysics tutorial to give.

And make sure you leave at 2:00.

Two thoughts on this. First, it tells the other person that you have a life; that finding the right person isn't the Holy Grail of your happiness. It removes any desperation factor (or the appearance of such.)

Secondly, you're giving both of you room to breathe, always a good plan.

The takeaway: Ending a date promptly might seem counter-intuitive. Give it a shot.



Bottoms Up, Dating Masterminds.

The Date Horizon

Alyssa Miller

Two qualities I observe in my own brain:

1. It looks for patterns of behaviour (in women I date) that might or might not exist.

2. Its imagination leaps to long-term possibilities with women far beyond reality.

They're both manifestations of an inaccurate Date Horizon. The Date Horizon (did I just coin this?) is the natural expectation of what's reasonable from the other person given the current state of the liaison. For instance:

* After a first date, the Date Horizon can really only extend to the possibility of a second.

* After the first sex, the Date Horizon probably includes some number of future sessions. (NOTE: Or none.)

* Once the Fidelity Agreement's in place, the Date Horizon extends out by a few months.

* Marriage takes the Date Horizon at least to the natural horizon.


I imagine that we all get ahead of ourselves when we start out with someone new. Sadly, it's unrealistic and I believe ultimately destructive when the other person fails to live up to our dream (the hide!) or we actually start living in a way that's not reality-based.

So. Note to self: One step at a time. Take each date as it comes. Understand not everyone will work out. Keep a tight rein on the imagination. Watch how nice it is when the Date Horizon really does move beyond tomorrow.



Bottoms Up, Imagineers.

Tell Him He's Dreaming

 Zarah Pacheco pic credit.

I do it all the time - I get stuck in my head, thinking about meeting the perfect gal, how it would all be so neat and clean and happy ever after. Living like this courts trouble, especially when we're talking the sex and so on, because the mind doesn't own a watch. Time has no meaning in daydream fantasy land, so that when a real life prospect comes along in actual real life, time actually applies and I crash to earth.

Time's important because there's really no fast-forwarding through the getting-to-know-you period. We're not like automobiles; there's no plugging in a computer to check the status and history of all the machine's systems, as fun as it is to imagine doing that with a person.

Okay, Bud, whattawe got here? Alrighty, looks like her history's pretty clean. Body's straight. Transmission's been replaced, looks like it was a warranty job, so that's good. Fluids all clean and changed regularly. Tyres are getting close to the limit, but will do for now. She needs to go for a long ride, I'd say she only does short trips around town, so she needs a good blow-out. Apart from that, I'd say you've got a solid prospect here. 

Wouldn't it be neat to know precisely what you're in for when you meet someone? Of course, there'd be no discovery, but really, revelation's over-rated. History's chock-full of dead explorers.

But back to this planet. We're all PDG at masking stuff we think needs hiding - but not forever. Some kind of universal consensus hovers around the eighteen month mark as about the period required to uncover your sweetie's suitability. That's about the time Magellan took to get half-way around the world.

Just for the record, he died there.



Bottoms Up, Relationship Mechanics.

Digital Love Analogue

 Stephanie Gateshet.

We're clearly moving from centuries of an analogue world to lives defined digitally. The changes are easy to see - we no longer measure, we count;  infinite shading is now thin slicing; perhaps is either on/off.

If this isn't the revolution of all revolutions, I don't know what is.

But, like, whatever. My interest lies in whether we're changing the nature of love. Is love analogue or digital? Do we look at love like a Caravaggio or a PDF file? Is the answer as obvious as it seems?

Digital love sounds awful. A bunch of ones and zeros on a wafer of silicon won't get anyone's heart racing, let alone inspire them to write a song or pen poetry. However, those ones and zeros are canny things; they understand that they're neither warm nor sexy, so they present us with a more lovable facade. The photo above, for instance. Or blogs. Or iTunes. Somewhere along the line, the digital gods found themselves a first-rate PR firm, and followed its advice.

The problem is that all their solutions are good at describing love but hopeless at actually being it. The look that melts your heart, the feeling of her touch, the invisible communication of minds in synch - I guess a robot will eventually simulate these things, but it will still be reproduction of love, not the core.

So I think we're safe for now. Love will be analogue for a long time, probably until your DNA has sex with an iPad, at which point we're all screwed. Or apped. But at that point it won't matter: we'll all be too busy shopping at Amazon for a lover to notice.




Bottoms Up, Microprocessors.

The Long and Short of Strap-On Dildos

I'm in two minds about fishing. On the one hand there is the grouper sandwich and macadamia encrusted mahi-mahi. Mmmmm....mahi-mahi. On the other hand there are hooks and nets.



How is the salmon served again?



Fishermen are divided into two species - recreational anglers, that is. There are live-bait fishermen and artificial-bait fishermen. It's not a trivial difference. These are Old Testament/New Testament kind of arguments, unsolved by beer or beer-battered catfish. But let us not tarry. My fishy musings aren't for nothing, dear friends. There are sex aids afoot and what wonders lie before us!



Behold, the strap-on dildo. This piece of priapic pulchritude fills a gap - so to speak - when a penis is missing. One imagines that most owners are lesbians, but no doubt there's a big market for women who want to show their menfolk what it's like to have six or more inches of extruded polymer shoved up their butt.



Which isn't where I'd like to focus. What's interesting to me is that Mr P is always invited to the party, whether the participants like penis or not. Lesbians, are, presumably, those most likely to purchase a strap-on...which must pain them no end. Interesting that those with only sapphic attractions still like an ersatz bloke about the place; one held in place with buckles and straps.



Let's review: When a dick's not to hand, there are always artificial dicks, even if you don't like dick or the person to whom he's attached. Bravo, marital aid industry and UPS. You've done us proud. Even those of us who use live bait.









Bottoms Up, Naturists.

She's Into Superstition.

Me, I'm a Taurean.

That makes me:

Patient and reliable
Warmhearted and loving
Persistent and determined
Placid and security loving

On the dark side that makes me:

Jealous and possessive
Resentful and inflexible
Self-indulgent and greedy


Some kind of package, eh?

Astrology is a truly clever invention, because it preys upon our need to know. I want to know how the world views me; I want to know how I fit; it's fascinating to predict the future; it's comforting to know I'm better off with a Virgo than an Aquarian.

The fact that astrologists, palm-readers, psychics, seers, taroists and sundry other future-gazers can still make a living shows how desperately we are - we need to know anything about ourselves we don't already know. Fear of the unknown, especially the future, is a vestige of our less knowledgeable past.

But not knowing the future is a problem only if you think it is. Imagine if you had a printout of the course of your life from now until the hour of your death; would that make the days between now and then less stressful?

See, I think that remaining calm in the face of chaos and the randomness of the universe is the great adventure. If you accept the unknown, you don't resent what happens, and if you can stay flexible and philosophic, you don't mind what happens.

That's why I would think carefully about a girlfriend with a heavy astrology or tarot habit - it strikes me as slightly nutty. But that's because I'm a Taurus, and we can be judgmental.



Bottoms Up, Stargazers.




Mrs Ann's sandwich board from here [link]

Simplicity, Clarice.

Simple, complex and chaotic.

But is it accurate?






I hope they don't mind me stealing it. Huuuuuugely appreciatve. [link]

Friday Fluffer - Love Letters

One of the most popular Googled posts hereabouts is this one: Love Letters [link]

If you have a romantic bone in your body or your trousers, I recommend you give it a shot. Not for what I had to say, but for the letters quoted.

So it was with some amazement that I found myself the recipient of a copy of the DVD pictured. Who knows how these PR people work. They send me a slightly personalized email asking about my interest, and POOF! there's a package in my box.

Let's get this straight: I am a huge, retrograde, old fashioned fan of hand-written letters. If they involve love, all the better. What we have here is a stellar dramatic production of a performance of historic love letters between Clara Schumann[link] and her husband, some hack pianist.

I am incapable of reviewing this thing dispassionately, so I plan to send it to the person most likely to give us clarity: Mr Martian. [link] Send me a real life postal address, and review this wondrous thing for us, my friend.

For those who like shortcuts, the DVD is a performance of Schumann's work punctuated by love letters between husband and wife. The parts are played by Sting and his wife, Trudie. It is heartachingly beautiful, despite the pedigree of the performers.

But I want Martian's opinion.




Photo by me.

This is a quick run-down of the DVD performance. [link]

Everywhere

It's a given that whatever you're looking for is right there in front of you. You just can't see it.

That sucks. What use is a universe that supplies the answers to our questions but not the understanding to know?

But wait: If the universe supplies the answers and did so all along, what's the weakest link here? That would be the way we look at things, wouldn't it?


I want to make special mention of a couple of links, to my right, as I speak.

One is Relationshipdisaster, which isn't as bad as you'd imagine.

The other is Lesbian Love, which is the bestest site ever if you are keen on dating another lady, and you're a lady. You know what I mean.





Pic from here [link]