Snow White

I watched the 1937 version of Disney’s Snow White tonight. I think that snow white is the only brunette princess that Walt Disney ever had. But I loved how girly she was. Even as a cartoon she picks up her skirt, lowers her eyes and giggles. Maybe all women in 1937 were that girly. She’s coy; she kisses her dwarfs on the forehead when they offer her their lips and takes very good care of her men.

I had a date tonight with a guy who couldn’t stop telling me how attracted he was to me; he couldn’t stop taking my hand…I had no attraction to him at all…he’s someone I won’t see again. Brown shoes. I can’t date a guy with brown shoes. Beta male. I watched Snow White and wondered if someday my prince would come…he found her in springtime when the cherry blossoms began to fall…it’s April 1st…cherry blossom season here in NJ.

I don’t know when I’ll meet a guy that I want to bake a pie for like Grumpy, gooseberry or not. Maybe I’m just tired of dating and not finding a man who’s the right one. Maybe I wasn’t ever meant to. Not all trees bear fruit.

I’m sad for all the years that I lost. I wonder if I’m squandering them now. I don’t feel like I’m on the outside looking in. I always feel that I’m inside looking out.

When I was in my 20’s I had a boyfriend who was a photographer. It took him a year of begging; a full year before I would let him shoot nudes of me. And one day he said the right thing to me. He said that I didn’t have any idea of my beauty and that when I was 80 years old that I would look back on my photographs and maybe then finally recognize it.

I let him take nudes of me for the next year while we dated and a few times after our relationship ended. From the moment I let him my perspective changed. I looked at them and they were beautiful—but they weren’t me. They were light and shape and shadow and form but I was me; separate and aside…inside, looking out in admiration.

And there is a different appreciation for women of that age. I don’t think that I fully understood men wanting younger women up until a year or two ago. When I was in my 20’s I was attracted to men in their 20’s. In my thirty’s the same thing; ditto for 40’s. I didn’t have a perspective of what youth really meant. But I see it now when I watch the young girls I mentor; I see it when I watch the girls in their teens just on the cusp of womanhood.

Their beauty lies in their innocence. Their lightness, their giggles; they live in a world where life hasn’t disappointed them where hope and optimism live in the steadfast belief that their prince will come.

That there will, of course be white steeds and castles and happily ever afters. Where it takes nothing more than a magic wishing apple and a kiss from a prince to have their dreams come true.

I think about women like Elizabeth Taylor who had multiple husbands. I wonder if they’ve had one of mine. I don’t know, maybe my standards are higher; maybe they have lesser expectations. Maybe they’ve learned to say that he’s not perfect, but he’s perfect for me. Maybe I love at a deeper level. Maybe it comes down to luck and a kind I didn’t have. Maybe we’ve passed each other on the street, maybe we didn’t.

What I do know is that I keep moving and I hate to move. Every time I do it’s more torturous than the last and I don’t ever want to do it again. I keep moving because no where feels like home. I’m wandering aimlessly and I don’t know if I have a date with destiny elsewhere or there will be a lifetime of an endless search for a pair of arms that will finally feel like I’m home. Where I want to fall asleep listening to his heartbeat and wake up with the warmth of his body wrapped around me. I’m heading to sleep tonight a princess without a king; a princess without a castle.

p.s. Dopey was my favorite! He reminded me of Teller of Penn and Teller...

Wait for the Four Commitments

I’ve been talking to women who are unhappy that the men that are pursuing them are really nothing more than players who are only looking for a sexual encounter. First let me say “lucky you” for having the feminine wiles to elicit that response! Secondarily, let me wake you up to the fact that a man is only a player if a woman allows him be a one. As a woman, that ball is in your court. That is harsh to say, but if a woman accepts an offer of casual sex from a man, she's asking to be played. Ouch.

Let’s admit it ladies, men will say all sorts of things to get you into bed. I have two brothers who have been incredibly honest with me. The younger one has always told me NEVER to believe anything that any man says. The older brother is a serial monogamous dater without the impetuous to make a further commitment. That is his girlfriend’s fault. She gave him everything a woman could give a man without getting the contract she needed, first. I guess you learn about good relationships by watching crappy ones.

Your only real option is to leave your eyes, ears and heart open at the same time.

A man chases the woman he wants. He does this by courtship—he makes her feel special, does nice things for her and proves himself worthy of her commitment to him. BUT men can and do provide, protect and cherish without wanting to give a woman a commitment. You must learn to watch a man’s actions instead of listening to his words by and letting that be your guidepost.

As feminine women, we’re always looking at a man’s actions to provide, protect and cherish us. Before you fall head over heels, you need to ask yourself is this person willing to make a commitment? Has he had a bad marriage and isn’t willing to remarry? Does he think he is settled “enough” in his career? Does he only chase women that are unavailable because in truth HE is actually unavailable? (By chasing women who he cannot attain he actually blocks himself from having to commit to a woman who would say yes to building a life him). We’ve all seen this man—he only wants a woman until he gets her—and then he moves on. He is addicted to the pain of the chase…and he leaves us scratching our head wondering what happened after we stopped running away.

I love the idea of old fashioned courtship. One of the online sites that I hang out on is 99.9% male. In one of the threads recently was guy complaining that he wished for an old fashioned girl. That although there was no one special in his life at the moment, the thought that the woman who would ultimately would be his wife and the mother of his children would have “looked for love in all the wrong place”…that she would have had sex with other men and he had a great distain for that.

Pat Allen's principles are that once you've established chemistry and compatibility you talk about making a commitment, fall in love with each other and only then have sexual relations. By following Pat’s guidelines everyone has a clearer understanding of the boundaries of the relationship. You have far less likelihood of painful rejection based on presumptions.

You will know that a man is serious about you and a longer term relationship beyond one night by the four commitments that he’s willing to make to you—and keep. Despite a world filled with pick up artists and feminine men who appreciate a woman chasing them, the truth is that it is always a woman’s choice of not who she attracts, but chooses to keep in her life. The wrong men will weed themselves out by fading away, or disqualifying themselves, but the right men will stick around. Of those that do you need to ask yourself if this is a man that you really could build a relationship with?

Do you have chemistry with him? Is this someone you want to touch you and someone you want to touch? Do you like the taste of his kisses and the pressure of his lips, hands and body against yours?

Do you have compatibility with him? Are you on the same page about having children, living together verses getting married? Are you a morning person and he’s a night owl? Does he like staying home while you’re a social butterfly? Would you marry outside of your faith? Would he? What do you ultimately want verses ultimately don’t want?

I’m a firm believer that a woman should not be dating one man exclusively until he puts an engagement ring on her finger. I understand that men won’t like this using logic by saying things like how will I make a commitment to you being my choice for “the one” if you’re dating other men and not exclusively dating me?

Tough. Your response should be that, you’re ready to be a wife and mother. How will my husband find me if I don’t let him date and win me? You’re asking me to make a commitment to you without your making the only commitment to me that matters—and that is one of a man willing to take me off the market and build a life with me.

This is especially true if a woman is of childbearing years and wants her own children. As a woman you must realize that your fertility is finite. You should always be willing to walk away from a man no matter how much you love him if he isn’t willing (in a time frame that is at least one year and no longer than two) to make a commitment of marriage and children to you. You must be willing to let go and give yourself the gift of allowing yourself to be found by a man who will give you the life that you need to be fulfilled and happy.

Within the course of a year people build a trustworthy record with each other. You experience knowing that that person will be there for you, cares for your well being and at that point really begin to know if this is a person you want to make a full time commitment to-- meaning engagement to marriage. There is nothing about you that a man isn’t going to know in three years, that he didn’t know in two, or even in one. If he hasn’t figured out that he wants to marry you by that time, he does not. Any answer other than a yes, is a no; period. Don’t convince yourself of anything else. Do not waste your youth and beauty waiting year after year for a man to decide that you are the right woman. It doesn’t work that way for men. They decide they are ready to be married and then look for a woman who will fit the bill for what they are looking for in a wife. Either you have that, or you don’t. Life may happen in the shades of gray, but this is black and white.

This may take some time to figure out but you both need to be on the same page of what dating exclusivity means to you both. This is Pat Allen’s four commitments (and compromises):

Monogamy— both social and sexual. Is your partner willing to not date others? Are they willing to not have sexual relations with others? This is frequently a shock to women who oxytocin bond to a man. A man can talk about marrying you and still have sex with other women. Sex can have absolutely nothing to do with your relationship with him. It is separate, aside, and meaningless. It is an act of gratification, not an act of love. There is a difference between having sex and making love.

Exclusivity—both of you agrees to only date each other.

Continuity—dates at least once per week, dating as a couple either in a group or alone, and contact. You should discuss how many times a week are you in each other’s company, daily phone calls or a few times per week? Many issues arise due to unmet expectations of how a relationship “should” work. When I was growing up, my mother didn’t call my father at work unless there was some sort of emergency. When I began dating a guy exclusively he became upset with me wondering why it was that I didn’t call him during the day. I wouldn’t dream of interrupting him and yet he expected that of me. It was a lovely respite and a break in his day just to hear my voice. He was upset enough to need to talk to me about it, as a feminine women, my feeling was “ask me, and I’ll say yes”.

Longevity—where is this relationship heading towards and in what time frame? Is it leading towards engagement in a six months or a year? Will there be a marriage with two years or eight years? Do you both want children and how many? Would you move in together at the time of engagement?

Respect a man’s space to come to the decision that you are the right woman on his own. Don’t try to change a man-- is impossible unless he himself chooses a lifetime of different behavior and travels that journey by himself. As women, we don’t have any power over any man and our only choices are either to accept or reject what he offers. That doesn't mean we have to say yes to anything that makes us feel uncomfortable including being sexual before a commitment or waiting endlessly for a man to ask you to be his wife.

Exclusivity is a gift to a man…it is earned over time. By not having sexual intercourse—oral, anal or vaginal with any one man that you are dating, the one that you’re hoping will be “the one” will know that you aren’t being sexual with anyone else either. It also lets him know that once you become his wife, no other man will sleep with you easily because of how hard he had to work to attain that privilege.

Saying Goodbye

Blondie:

Saying goodbye to love even when it has run its course is never easy, but it is necessary. It truly broke my heart to hear that your younger brother sent Anthony a card asking him to come visit him and said that he never comes over like he used to; and p.s. please date my sister again so she can come home.

First and foremost you must call your younger brother today and tell him that both you and your sister (next year) have to go away to school so that you can learn how to make lots of money…and when he grows up, he’s going to go away to school, too. You have to reassure him that you love him and that Anthony’s not dating you anymore isn’t the reason you aren’t home, but school is. That you miss him very much and you’ll come home to see him every chance you get to. He can always call you when he misses you and that you’d love to get a card from him too—that you promise to keep it with you at school.

It also broke my heart to hear that Anthony was crying on the phone when he told you this today. For as tough as men are on the outside, their soul is far more sensitive than a woman’s. That is hard to believe but it is true…a woman will never be as sensitive as a man. It’s a paradox. It’s one of the reasons that I always advise women to be careful with a man’s soul. Pat says that they have a steel door and that what you do and say gets etched in acid—they never forget a hurt. Once that steel door comes down that covers the softness of their soul, there is no opening it again.

There is an important lesson here for you here that I’m not even sure that you’re aware of.

When Anthony became cocky to you because he didn’t want you to have the natural growth and development that everyone goes through he became angry at you. He said that you were no longer the woman he fell in love with and after breaking up with you actually said “against my better judgment, I want to go out with you again”. Kudos to you for saying no to that “offer”. A man will always value you at the price you value for yourself. You walked away; you respected his space to miss you, by saying that doesn’t feel good; thank you, but no.

A man may always want the challenge of fighting for a woman; it is within their nature. That emotion doesn’t translate to a feminine woman. She wants the safety and security of knowing that a man is there for her before she can become vulnerable and dependent on him. If she needs to fight for a man, a feminine woman will always lose interest.

Every woman has to always remember that she is the prize a man is fight for; he gets the privilege of her allowing herself to acquiesce to his leadership by giving him the chance to cherish, protect and provide for her after –ONLY he has proven himself worthy of having her. It is always a woman’s choice to say yes or no, that isn’t a good enough offer.

His cockiness and his angry ego wanted to knock you down a peg and have you believe that HE was the prize that you got to keep. I’ve always said to you that a woman loves herself more than she ever loves a man. You proved that you wouldn’t tolerate anything less from any man—including the one you were considering spending the rest of your life with.

Physiologically men and women’s brains are different. There is a variation for left handed men and biologically gay men, but right handed men cannot think and feel at the same time. I call it tick-tocking…the amount of time it takes men to process the difference between their thoughts and feelings. You must remember that it could take men up to eight weeks to move from one side of a man’s brain—the logical to the feeling side and really begin to feel a woman’s loss. Women can always think and feel at the same time.

If you have not heard from a man after eight weeks, chances are you never will. If a man comes back to you before hand, he is beginning to really FEEL your loss and hopes that he can get you back before he looses you to another man.

I’ve advised you and I would other women as well that although you can date other men during the eight week waiting time, IF you want the relationship back, you must never be physically intimate with any other man. The man from the old relationship will never forgive that you valued yourself less by not having another man work hard for you; not as hard as he did; it will change how he views his prize of having you, forever.

When Anthony called you today, although he cried, he didn’t ask for you to come back. He’s blaming you when the truth is that it is his behavior that had you no longer wanting that what he was offering you was enough; it was not. His words to you were hurtful and undeserved. No one is perfect and it’s unfair to ask a human to be, but his saying “what do you want me to do sit around and wait for you? You threw me out of your life” will be his lesson to learn if and when he examines his part in this break up.

But in my asking you if you would be willing to stop dating your new guy to return to Anthony, you said that you would not; neither would you be willing to date both of them casually and not be exclusive with either.

So you have your answer. The loss of Anthony is a painful one; you’ll have those memories forever. He set the bar and that’s a wonderful position for him to be in. But it is also time to let go make room for someone new in your life.

Your lesson is that you must always ask yourself how it feels to be in the company of a man and listen carefully to anything that feels uncomfortable in your body. Right now D is the man where you feel you are at your best being with. Anthony, through his own behavior lost that feeling in you.

Back to Blondie:

I'm sorry that you didn't take my advice and ended up contacting your ex regarding his facebook "friending" his ex-girlfriend. As you see, it didn't end well.

By downloading pictures of the guy you are currently seeing onto your facebook account, you're in essence flaunting that you've moved on with your life in front of your ex. To then ask him why he is in contact with his ex makes you look bitchy, petty and jealous. His response to you was "lol" and "that you are all over your new guy in every picture".

I understand that it is difficult to see him talking about other girls and getting hammered. It is equally as painful for him to see you dating other guy. That's why I advised you to "unfriend" him. Not because you don't still like your ex, but because you do. You unfriend an ex because it's painful for you to watch him move on with his life without you.

If you get to move on with your life, he gets to move on with his--period. As a single guy, he has every right to be in contact with whomever he wants; again, it's just best for YOU not to see his every move in his day to day life. Do you understand the difference? By trying to protect him from her is about asking him to change his behavior--by unfriending him and not contacting him, you are changing yours.

Yes, you can be pissed that he's being a jackass and you can do what ever you want with your camera; and he can be pissed that you're taking pics of other guys with the camera he bought, but your saying that "if he didn't want me taking pics of other guys he shouldn't have dumped me" makes YOU look like you're instigating and picking a fight with him on grounds that you no longer have--you are no longer his girlfriend.

And truthfully, even if you were his girlfriend, we'd have a conversation about whether or not that was appropriate...because I'm not sure that you have the right to be bitching even if you were his girlfriend. Your behavior looks like it's coming from a jealous place; this looks like you're playing games with him since when he asked for you to come back and be his girlfriend again, you said no.

I'm not telling you not to post pics of a new guy that you're dating, I'm telling you to make a smaller circle of your closest friends and close it that circle tight.

Some years ago, I had a mentor say that to me and it took me a few mintutes to figure out what she was saying.

Most people don't know that the real estate field is incredibly cut throat and at every move, you're swimming with sharks. Twice, I had so called friends try to screw me out of deals; the first one I was able to manover around and made about thrity five thousand in forty minutes. The second deal which would have been worth millions, disappeared.

I later found out that the person who was my supposed best friend at the time was actually stabbing me in the back. This person, with whom I had openly shared all of my real estate knowledge and my life was stabbing me, until I discovered the truth. She learned about this multi-million dollar deal on my birthday. She came over to bring me flowers on my birthday. We talked for hours--defenses down. She wanted my deals--and ultimately my money more than she wanted my friendship. I learned in that moment to cut ties quickly no matter how painful.

In talking to my mentor, she told me that there was a magic in me that my girlfriend didn't have and that no one could steal that--but to be far more careful about who I let in. In telling to me to close my circle what she was saying was no one gets in, no one gets out. And I've never partnered with anyone again in doing a deal. I also had to learn to mentor far less, although I have always hand chosen who I will or won't mentor. I suppose I could teach less than ALL of my knowledge; but I tend to be an all or nothing kind of woman.

In the real estate clubs that I belonged to it was part of the atmosphere of the club that we all talked about our deals openly. In polite society, it's rude to ask someone how much money they made flipping a piece of property--there, we all talked proudly about it without any malice or jealousy. I would have never believed that she would have done that to me, until she did.

After that betrayal, I had to learn NOT to talk about my deals. If my best friend couldn't be trusted, no one could.

I know this is difficult with your being young and having hundreds of facebook friends, but I'm asking you to close your circle. Who are you REALLY friends with that you can trust not to talk to your ex about what you are doing and with whom? Who can you unfriend because they really aren't a part the parts of your life where you need the most trust? How did you ex know that you "unfriended" him? Prune your weeds.

Or, you have to learn to be far more private about what you post on facebook--the choice is yours, but what you're doing is causing youself pain that can easily be avoided by modifying your behavior.

My suggestion to you right now is to clean up your side of the street by telling him that the only reason that you had asked him was out of a genuine concern for his welfare because you knew how much she had hurt him in the past, but of course, he has every right to form whatever relationships are best and then wish him peace in return for the peace he offered you.

I know that you are angry that after all of this last night he dropped whatever things of yours he had off to your house without telling you, but again, this was your doing. Had you not been in contact with him, this fight would not have happened. Be a lady, send him a thank you for dropping off your stuff. Be grateful he didn't throw it away like he did he previous girlfriends. You know his behavior regarding his ex's and her stuff. This is how he behaves, this wasn't news to you.

As painful as it is, you need to move on with your life as if he is no longer a part of it. This is a lesson for you to have learned; the only person who's behavior you can change is your own.

And, as always, sperm chases egg.

I have a question

My ex is making contact with his ex girlfriend Lisa-the one I hate and he befriended her on facebook and all I want to do is scream at him and cry and I don't know what to do...not so much jealousy but I still care for him and I hate this bitch and I don't want her screwing up his life again...what do I do?


Dear Anonymous:

Thank you for the comment! I’d like to encourage any of my readers to bring me a relationship question by clicking on the word “comment” under my blog and filling out the pop up box—I’d be happy to answer it.

To answer your question, in short, do nothing. The hardest thing in the world to do is absolutely nothing when what you want to do is something and you’re looking for what the “right" something is. If you are having any anxiety at all over this, this is what girlfriends are for and show no emotion in front of him.

There are a few things that you have to remember. Although technically he broke up with you, he expected at his whim, you would be willing and available to go back with him. When you grew tired of his pushing and pulling you back and forth, and said no, he became angry with you. He knows that you don’t like his ex, but he is also missing female companionship and it’s easy for him to go back to a place (with her) of comfort and familiarity. Our softened memories have us remember the best of the moments with our ex’s—that‘s why there are so many relationships these days that after failed marriages, people go back to high school and college sweethearts for a “second time around” opportunity.

Right now, whatever his choices are, whatever mistakes he makes, those lessons are his to learn. He is no longer yours. It is not feminine energy to protect him. Protection is masculine--and since I know that you are not, there is something else going on--but first:

My suggestion to you is to delete him from your facebook friends list. It is far easier for you not to know what he’s doing or with whom. Had you not known, you would have saved yourself from this anguish and pain to begin with.

I know that you are afraid that he is going to have sex with her and that you don’t want him to. I know that you’re feeling on this is that if he ever slept with another woman there would be no returning to you. He also knows that. But the truth is that he has every right as a single man to find whatever comfort he needs where ever he finds it.

You also need to remember that men can have sex with a woman that they don’t have romantic feelings for—or even like, or know.

For women in touch with their feelings, they typically bond to a man with their bodies through a chemical that their bodies produce called oxytocin. It is our love drug. Initially, oxytocin was thought to be produced by women who had given birth, bonding themselves with their children. It has been shown that women produce that bond through sexual intercourse. I don’t personally believe that intercourse is necessary. I know women who have bonded with a man by just dancing with him. I know others that have had oxytocin flood their bodies by kissing or even just smelling a man.

There is very interesting science attached to love and attraction. Nature has a beautiful mechanism in place for a woman to protect her fetus and genetic material by passing it on to future generations by survival of the fittest. And what is meant by that survival is adaptability. A woman is either chemically attracted to a man or not based on her liking his smell. The exchange of liking his smell is unconscious—it’s not his cologne or laundry detergent. When a woman encounters a man who’s immune biology is a little like her parents and a little NOT her parents, it begins a chemical rollercoaster inside of her body that binds her to him in what nature hopes is a chance at a good reproductive option.

That oxytocin boding is why men today call women psycho and stalkers…she cannot help herself from wanting to be close to that man. It is a drug as powerful as cocaine addiction that can take as long as two years for a woman to become un-bonded from that man.

Although you are no longer actively dating him, you body is still bonded to him and it will be for a long time. Men can think nothing of spreading their seed far and wide…in fact they are built for it. Women become bonded to a man in nature’s hope of having more than one offspring with stronger genetic material than it started with. Of course, you would be unhappy with the possibility that the man your body craves as a naturally selected mate might choose to plant his seed elsewhere. I'd like to tell you that even after a woman looses her ability to conceive that this bonding process stops; it does not.

The best way for you to un-bond to this man is to continue to date elsewhere—eventually your feelings will catch up with your behavior. The worst thing that you can do right now is to be physically near him. You must not smell him. His scent will have you back at square one to beginning the un-bonding process—again—you have forestalled the up to two years every time you smell him again. Two years can turn to three, three to four unless the process has completely ended.

If he still has your possessions or you end up in a social situation where you are physically in the same room as him, you must remain at least 30 inches away from him as not to be close enough to smell him. Thirty inches is far enough away for your reproductive immunity picker not to choose him again and again. It would be best if you could have someone else do a possession exchange. I know you want to see him but you must fight that urge or you have chosen your own misery.

On a brighter note, serendipity has its own course and time. Let me tell you the story of how my parents met. My mom was young and had an older sister who was dating a guy who wanted to fix up his cousin with my mom. Her sister knew this guy had a bit of a bad boy reputation and said "not a chance". That was 8 months prior to my mother and father meeting.

My mother ended up getting engaged to a guy named Frank (I have more men in my life named Frank than I can shake a stick at!) Anyhow, Frank ended up being shipped out in the military and had a friend who he had asked to show my mom a good time while he was out serving our country. One particular Saturday night my mom and this other guy were supposed to head to out to N.Y. and it happened to be storming. Her mother wouldn’t let her go. It also happened that a neighbor was getting married that particular Saturday night and my grandmother and aunt (her older sister) were invited to the wedding. My grandmother said to my mother that she couldn’t go to N.Y. but if she wanted to get out of the house for a little while, she could go to the wedding with her and her sister.

My mother argued with my grandmother and said that she wasn’t invited. My grandmother said to her to come for the religious portion of the wedding and then she could go home. As soon as my mother attended the service, my father walked right up to her and wouldn’t leave her side. When she told him that she wasn’t invited to the reception he asked her to stay and said that she could sit in his seat and she could eat his meal if she would just stay—so she did—and soon afterwards broke her engagement to Frank.

Had any one of those circumstances changed—that Frank wasn’t off to war, that it hadn’t have stormed, that the wedding was held on a different night, that her mother allowed her to go to N.Y.--with any change in any of those circumstances, I wouldn’t be here. My mother was supposed to have met my father 8 months before she did—nothing that anyone could have done—including her sister saying that she wouldn’t allow the introduction, Nothing was going to change the destiny of their being together until death did them part.

IF it is meant to be that at some other point in time the two of you will get back together, the universe will find a way to make that happen. Even if it means that he’s made mistakes with other women; you’ll find a way to forgive him. Step out of destiny's way.

How do you feel?

I’m kinesthetically orientated. I’ve always known that my whole world emanated from touch and feel. When I was little I was picked on for being “sensitive”. I still am—not picked on; just sensitive. I cried, I grew a thicker skin, hiding who I was on the inside and letting the world see who I became on the outside. Pat says that I’m inside out; that I should be showing far more vulnerability outside and to be harder inside; I’m only learned to crawl where that is concerned—I’m far away from walking that walk.

Being an alpha female—meaning that my view of the world is half masculine energy and half feminine energy and having the kinesthetic orientation is one of the only ways that I know it is easier for me to groom my feminine side and to vanquish my masculine as much as possible.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last several years hanging out on mixed martial arts websites. I think it’s time that I let that go from my life; maybe for right now; maybe forever.

For those of you that are fans, you’ll know that the UFC bought out Strikeforce—which was a forum for women fighters to have bouts. The UFC doesn’t have women fighters and it has been said that they won’t.

I was recently asked how I felt about women fighters since they were losing a professional platform to engage in their sport. I told them that I’ve tried to watch women fighting—it’s weird to me and I don’t enjoy it all.

What I love about male fighters is the completely masculine aspect of it—that I can watch two warriors; gladiators, filled with a testosterone raged battle like great rams bucking and charging for supremacy; all to bear witness in battle for the right to mate with a female. It’s bloody and raw and muscular and sweaty; it is nature’s ultimate male challenge; watching it, for me as always been a sneaky prurience into the dominant male’s nature driven psyche.

What I’ve come to realize this week is that hanging out on that particular site has made me more masculine than I want to be. There’s a whole lot of keyboard jockey pompousness that brings out the tough girl in me and I don’t want to be that woman. Having my masculine energy to the fore means that my feminine energy is pushed to the back burner and I prefer being a more than woman; being a lady. While I’m there, I want to tell a whole lot of lesser men to go eff themselves. Yes, I’ll admit it, sometimes I’m a better man then the men that hang out there…and then the neurolinguistic orientation of who I am at my core, comes back to remind me that I’m a girl and being there isn’t making me happy.

I was reading something that a girlfriend had written a few years ago because she’s in a married relationship with a man who isn’t the touchy-feely type; although she’s elatedly happy that he does hold her hand and that’s the best she gets from him. She says that they have a different “love language”… I disagree. I think it’s a matter of non-matching neurolinguistic orientation.

Neurolinguistic orientation predicates that one of your senses is the primary one that you experience the world by. Most people are visual, auditory or kinesthetically orientated. Very few are taste or smell—although it does happen. It’s easy to tell who you’re talking to, if you pay attention—it will become apparent in a person’s verbiage. Kinesthetically orientated will say frequently “this is how I feel” or “smooth as silk”--touch; auditory people will say “that’s as clear as a bell” or “hear me out”; visually orientated will say “I see your point” or “picture this”. It’s easy- peasy- lemon- squeezy to find if you know what you’re looking for. (And yes, there are some people that are “neutral”, but it’s rare; they will say things like “I understand”.) Of course, everyone has their secondary and tertiary orientation—but a person’s basic orientation is the easiest to pick up on—after that it’s patterns.

I believe that when you meet someone and you have an instant connection, this is one of the reasons why—you speak each other’s language. When I think about how easy it is to be with others that are kinesthetically orientated, it seems to make the most sense to look for that in a man. But scratching the surface, I think the last thing that I want is a man who femininely “sensitive” and I don’t know if I can find the holy grail of a man who is both feeling orientated and masculine enough to tame me.

Therein lies the dilemma; either to find a man who doesn’t speak my orientation and suffer through the language barrier “happily enough” or to live unnerved by a man who understands “too well”.

My girlfriend who didn’t marry a kinesthetically oriented man has to consistently remind herself that no, he doesn’t touch her the way that she would want to be touch—having her hair stroked or being reached for, but he changes the oil in her car and makes sure that the tire pressure and gas levels are full. He doesn’t view her body as an asset to him in that he needs to her touch but he houses and clothes her. He doesn’t choose to dance with her to quell the desire of holding her close to him, but he takes her on cruises several times per year.

At her soul and spirit, she’s miserable. I would be too. Pat asked her to decide if it was more important to her that she be loved or touched. She has no doubt that she is loved. Pat said that a woman will die of not being liked, of not being loved, but she won’t from not being touched. Pat asked her if she was willing to give up her lifestyle and her marriage in order to meet a man who was willing to touch her.

This is sort of stunning to my sensibilities. In my life, I’ve had many opportunities to marry rich—but who those men were, weren’t enough. I believed the fairy tale that I really could have it all; a husband who I couldn’t wait to make love to, children whom I adored, a career that I enjoyed so much that I would have done for free every day for the rest of my life. I waited and ended up with none of it.

When the neurosurgeon wanted to marry me, my mother sat me down and it was only time in my adult life that she had this conversation with me. She said to me “you need to decide how you want to live”. She knew I loved Puerto Rico (my top spot for the most handsome men in the world!) She said to me do you want a home there? Nice clothes, great jewelry? Marry him, because if you wait to be deeply in love, even if you love him now, ten years from now you won’t be in love anymore anyway. She said to me if he’s lousy in bed, go find yourself a lover on the side—he’s working all day; he won’t know what you’re doing”. I said “oh ma” and poo-poo’d her advice off….I remember thinking how stupid she was for having said that to me. Wealthy men were easy to find—as easy a finding a penny on the street. They were everywhere and it took absolutely nothing for me to find them—they found me. I thought that someday I’d find that magic combination. A man who was smart enough, strong enough, sexy enough, wealthy enough, whole enough, good father material enough to welcome me with pride into his world. That I was the prized he was willing to fight for. That he was man enough to have me let go of my control of the world and let him lead the way for our life together, that I could trust him enough to turn my sails into his wind and let him take me on a journey that I wouldn’t have had, had it not been for him. That someday there would be that man that I could walk away from who I was as “me” to begin a new life as “us”.

I don’t know if I could do what my girlfriend did. She sold her house in Washington, moved down South and made a life with a man that wasn’t perfect, but good enough. She struggles with the reality of what she lost and told me, that given a choice, with all of the pain she feels, the love that she has for her husband makes it all worth it and she would make that choice of him and his lack of touch desire all over again. I don’t know if I could do that. I think it would be agony for me to want all of a man, and only have part of him. But Dr. Pat says to stop wanting; I don’t get to want, I get to “not want” as in I don’t want to spend the rest of my life promising to man that I chose you to be my lover every day for the rest of my life and then not have that. Maybe my girlfriend more evolved than I am. Maybe the fantasy still lives in me and is much more pleasurable than the reality; and yet there is a part of me that’s lonely without sharing the day to day with someone.

I watched the orange county housewives last Sunday. Alexis lives some dream that she’s in a wonderful (second) marriage with a wealthy man, and she claims he treats her well. I watch his actions, he isn’t kind in the least. He humiliated her by making her stand with 10 pieces of luggage in front of a hotel while he took her picture. She said she was embarrassed, he didn’t care. There were five in the family and ten pieces of luggage for three days. Considering that she has twin toddlers and the luggage wasn’t big, I didn’t think it was excessive—he did. They, as a couple went shopping for jewelry; the husband bought himself two watches totaling 27 thousand dollars; she tried on an eight carat diamond. He told her to give the ring back, that the ring would hurt the children. Crappy excuse—he didn’t want to buy her the ring and he didn’t. She didn’t end up with anything but she was pissed off and said that “she worked hard for her diamonds, she deserved that ring”—but she didn’t say it to him. Bingo.

She’s lying to herself. She tolerates all of his crap for money. She chooses lifestyle over happiness—or maybe it was that money can bring you a level of happiness that you are willing to sell your soul for. Humiliation traded for eight carats of diamonds and a wealthy life in Orange county California. Maybe I have a happy enough life that I wouldn’t put up with that crap. Maybe I’ve yet to really understand on a gut level that no one gets it all and that is what Pat’s teaching. Maybe they just chose one kind of unhappiness and I chose another. I’m not sure that I have the answer. Maybe the real question is am I willing to trade?

Broken Choices

Today’s society has degraded. Male role models are virtually nonexistent. Today, who appears to be an alpha male, a tough guy, an uncaring man, a leader is nothing close to the reality of a man that any man should want to emulate. I can’t think of one single man that a male child should want to grow up to emulate. Donald Trump? Nope…for all of his hype, he was a man who repeatedly cheated on women and by his bankruptcy, left his creditors holding the bag for his incompetent choices. Puff daddy /diddy made being “G” or “gangster” cool…children out of wedlock…again, he may have money but he is a failure as a man because he chose not to step up to his responsibility of marrying their mother. What this men gave up for the dream of a better life had them loose their soul in the process.

A few hundred years ago, those children would be called bastards. Those rakish fathers would have been shunned by society rather than revered. Those children had none of the privileges and all of the shame of the result of sexual liaison out of wedlock. They carry with them the foolish and childish choices of the mistakes that their parents made. Those children carry with them the shame of baser instincts over dignity. They carry with them a life with a father who in one way or another abandoned them.

(As an aside, as it turned out, the man who thought my brother might be his father was not my brother’s son; leaving this man to question his own mother’s behavior and leaving him with lack of a direction and the right he had to know his own paternal lineage. Through no fault of his own, that right was taken from him. There isn’t a chance that he looks in the mirror, sees himself and feels whole. He is broken.)

Men and women are different; I get it—I really do. A man has sexual urges that are difficult to contain in a world full of women that are perfectly willing to sleep with a man without a commitment from him. In yester year a man needing sexual gratification married for access to a woman’s body. I believe women today would be far better served to return to that “entrance fee” as a personal choice.

A man’s value is tied to his profession, his ability to provide for his family. But I’m questioning the balance and breaking of the spirit when a man doesn’t take the time each day to solidify those connections.

I’ve recently read two diametrically things written by men. One was part of a blog this man wrote as an open letter to his daughter. She’s six. He travels many days per week across the country lecturing. He asked her would she rather that he helps people or have him at home with her? She initially said that she wanted him but then added through some sense of guilt or being taught of needing to share that it was important to help people, too. It was sort of stunning to me. That in this open letter of his experience with his daughter it would even be conceivable to ask a child to verbalize the adult concept of choosing the sacrifice of whether or not to be with her father and for him to actually justify by guilt his leaving her—again by having it be her choice. He said in this letter that he felt she made him whole and he thanked her. What he didn’t realize was that in leaving her, he left her incomplete.

Childhood is so fleeting. You blink and your children have gone from being two years old and hiding behind your leg to being 16 and wanting to be their friends. He apologized and said that he was sorry that he wouldn’t be there to kiss away the “owies” but he didn’t ever once in the letter say that he loved her. I believe that he does, he just didn’t say it. He didn’t say that he may not always be there when she wants him to be, but he’d always be there when she needed him to be.

Unknowingly, he’s raising his daughter to be broken, because he is. She’s learning every day not to count on a man to be there and he asked a child to justify her broken heart. She said she wanted HIM as her first response, he chose not to hear her until he got the response he wanted. He, as a man, is broken; he believes that choice of money over his family is the right one.

I understand that the money he earns gives her the lifestyle that she has. She has a home and pretty dresses and gets to go to Disneyland. What she doesn’t get is a father that comes home at 6:00 pm and chooses to share his life with his daughter. He doesn’t engage her in his stories of her day, explain a current event, kiss away her tears over a bad dream, tell her stories of when he was little and help her with her homework every day.

I think that most men don’t have a full understanding that for a woman, relationships need nurturing ever day. Women need the connection. Women need the interaction. Given a choice, I would have less lifestyle and more family connection. It is a disease of our lifetime. I grew up in a family with multi-generations living together in neighborhoods where you actually knew your neighbors. There were b-b-q’s and porches and mosquito bites in summer with hours and hours of conversation and interrelating.

There were Saturday night card games and board games and role playing with dolls-- mommies and daddies and children playing house. There were date nights and the excitement of a man who when you hoped would ask you out actually did. But women didn’t hurry to say yes…they said “I’ll think about it” and made a man wait for the possibility of a chance to woo her. He gave her his ring or his pin or his jacket to wear. When I think of most men today, it reminds me of the at Joe Jackson song where he sort of waxes poetic his past experiences and his own shortcomings of what it meant to a man and says “men that always grew up better men then me and you”.

The other story that I read is of a man struggling with the same premise but from a different perspective. That he knew that he had to work to provide for his family and children but was at times jealous of his hedge fund friends who made millions of dollars per year and by comparison, his angst of being a failure. But he shared the ins and outs of his day with his children. They ate meals together, each child had alone time with him. They shared their religious connection by reading from the bible each night. By 9 pm each of the children with whom he had shared the experiences of his and their days were in their own rooms, retired for the night. At that point, he and his wife made the time to share their relationship as friends and lovers. They considered anytime after 9 pm a “do-free” zone. Nothing that needed to be done to the kids, for the kids, for the house, or for their social lives was not already discussed and “done”. This was their time to relate to each other as their sanctuary from the outside world. They chose time each day to refresh their choices as partners and vows as lovers for each other. He considered himself broken as well (for the wanting) but with one difference. When he asked himself would he give up the intimate relationships that he has with his children daily for one million dollars, his answer was no.

From a woman’s perspective it is the right choice. Women need that connection. To be touched, to be stroked, to be smiled at, to have their feelings cherished, appreciated and met. It is the only way that they know every single day, that they matter.

When Bitchy Moves Aren’t Appropriate

I happened to be on one of my social networking sites this morning and noticed that one of the girls who I personally mentor about relationships had made a comment to her recently broken up boyfriend on his status. He was commenting about a little hottie he had noticed in yoga pants and a hoodie.

My mentee said she “liked” his comment status. Ouch. It seems a little angry and inappropriately bitchy.

J.’s every move in her and her boyfriend’s relationship was passed by me for the first 6 months—and after that, when anything went wrong. She always says that she would have never had that relationship without me. The sweetest things that she has done recently are a: to teach what I’ve taught her to another girl navigating the beginnings of a relationship and b: to ask herself when she’s in a pickle “what would Fran do?” I’m smiling.

A. is a great guy—or at least used to be. He did what a man does when he meets a woman that he wants. He courted her. He dated her, he bought things for her, he attended church with her because her spirituality was important to her, he waited to be physical with her until she was ready, and he begged her not to go to school out of state.

A year passed and J. headed off to school; she wondered where her engagement ring was and then she asked me to talk it out with her.

J. is a grounded bright and beautiful girl; she’s lived a life where although she isn’t poor, she’s watched her parents struggle daily. She wants a different life than that—and I believe that she’ll have one.

A., her boyfriend, has told her that he’s contented to live quiet life in a middle class town and have a two week vacation once per year. J. not only wants, but needs more. I told her that I would be happy for her if she were to marry him; I would be happy for her if she didn’t. Only she could decide how big or small she needed her world to be.

I told her that the world was full of men who would be happy to wine and dine her and show her lots of pretty lights. There is a world full of men who would be happy to welcome her into their world and give their world to her in return. I told her of the men that offered me vacations to exotic lands; men that have negotiated with me what size (his minimum was 7 carats) and what color diamond (pink or yellow) I’d like for my engagement ring and whether I’d be interested in being married in the front hotel or the back tower of the Plaza Hotel.

I told her that the next 10 years of her life will be all about experiences and how those will change her. That the things that men shared with me when I was young became a part of who I am today and are still very much things that I love…when I was 21 my boyfriend who was older by 8 years dragged me around looking to complete his 18th century oak furniture collection. That led me to share those experiences with a supervisor who was on the national board of the Victorian society. Every time he (my supervisor) went on vacation I was the only one of his subordinates who received French perfume, jewelry and collection of Waterford crystal. I suppose I must have been blonde-blind at the time, but some years later my brother asked me if I didn’t realize that he was in love with me…I didn’t look at him that way, so no, I didn’t.

J. is beginning her new life of adult experiences and A. isn’t happy about it. She had a beer—one beer at a party and he become angry with her. He told her that she was no longer the girl he fell in love with and that he was breaking up with her. I told her to let him go. A few days later he asked for her to come back but with a snotty caveat he said “against my better judgment”… I told her not to take him back. He needed to understand that she was the prize in this relationship, not him. He needed to work to keep her, not grudgingly take her back. He needed to suffer with missing her in order for him to lose his cockiness and understand what he has in her.

In the meantime, J. has been spending time with someone else—and she likes him. A. has gotten word and he’s angry. He’s acting out by accusing her of all sorts of nonsense that happened between them nine months ago. She asked me what to she should say to him. I told her to say that she’s no longer dwelling on the past but running joyfully toward her future. He doesn’t have the right to be angry, he broke up with her. (Maybe it’s a Jersey thing—insert Ronnie and Sammi’s relationship from the Jersey Shore.)

It’s not that J. doesn’t have feelings for A.—she does—she just feels that she needs time to explore these years and hoped that perhaps at some point in the future, that if he is meant to be her husband, he’ll come back—after she finishes law school. She’ll be ready then to settle down and start her family. But poking an angry bear isn’t going to keep him thinking of her in a positive light. Years from now he’s going to remember this angry bitchiness of her “liking” his relationship status when he’s eyeing other women instead of moving on with her life without him and waiting for him to decide to add to it.

Yes, it’s always a man’s choice; but a woman’s prerogative to say yes or no.

I was doing some reading this morning on Judaism and particularly on Orthodox Judaism. In the Orthodox tradition, a woman cannot remarry unless her husband gives her a secular divorce. A woman whose husband won’t agree to this is considered “anchored” and cannot remarry. It was interesting to me to read that during the 9/11 disaster, men who were resigned to their fate in those last moments of their lives had faxed home copies of their willingness to be religiously divorced from their wives as their last loving act. They gave their wives the freedom to love again.

Dr. Pat also considers a woman who knows her worth and isn’t willing to take a lot of crap from a guy “anchored”. Making unnecessary comments on ex’s status, isn’t.

J. asked me if she could remain friends with A. I told her no. Your friends are friends because they are not your lovers. Lovers cannot be friends until both of you have moved on to relationship where you are both happy and there isn’t any feeling at all of resurrecting a relationship between the two of you.

It is your job to be receptive, joyful and happy to hear from him if he approaches you without malice. That is your practice in learning to maintain your feminine yin womanhood – not to be a coiled-up, snarling bitch ready to strike because you want more from him. You don’t get to “want” something different, something better…more. Today he isn’t willing to give to you what you ultimately need from him… a life that was bigger than what you have, and you have every right to want that for yourself and your family. But this is also your yin practice in grace: to learn to be charming, warm and welcoming; to keep your attraction for him, even if right now it is not reciprocated in a way that you want it to be. But also consider that this ultimately might be a lack of compatibility in a partner. If you both want different things from life, either he’ll step up and provide that for you, or he’ll let you go to find a man who will give you what you need.

But also understand that men test woman constantly. If a woman get’s pissy over what he thinks is little to nothing, he moves on. Train yourself not to respond in impulse. He will either consider you a crazy psycho bitch, desperate for his attention, or you’ll moved into the friend category. No man wants willingly to end up with a woman who’s going to hate being with over every minor infraction. They end up calling you dramatic.

It’s very possible that although you J. still love A., he may not be as masculine as he appears and may not be willing to lead your relationship to a place that you are comfortable; or it may be that ultimately his commitment to a woman will be elsewhere; or that he may be waiting for the seed planted to sprout.

A man may walk away from you when he knows his personal sense of who he is in the world won’t measure up for you and although that is a painful goodbye, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You will have less dates because a man may feel that he will be unable to make you happy, but those men who weed themselves out early by their yardstick won’t waste the precious years of your fertility either.

Two days After the Rose

I read this morning that rumors abound that Brad and Emily have already ended their relationship and that Monday night’s reunion was a farce. It didn’t seem that way to me, but I thought about it today and how the couples that had "made it" talked about how difficult Monday nights and Tuesday mornings were for the ultimately chosen partners to handle watching their loved one date others.

What fools. I have a cousin by marriage that had gone on one of those dating reality TV shows. She was one of the final two, and ultimately not chosen. She handled it as well as she possibly could; she liked him. When I talked to her about it, the taping of the show had ended about 6 weeks before. I told her that perhaps it wasn’t over; that perhaps he would be unhappy with his choice and come back to her. She said to me that for her, it WAS over.

I’ve questioned whether as women living in this time have we lost our dignity and humanity for the chance at celebrity or has the dating world become so shallow that we would be willing to do anything for the possibility of love. Perhaps I’ve grown older and wiser but for me, the answer is that I would not.

I had an opportunity to date someone a few weeks ago and ultimately chose not to meet him.

For about 20 years I had perfectly manicured long French polished nails. Last June I decided that I was tired of the look and cut them short and now they’re dark. I like it. My hair is darker than my natural color and there is a ring of dark purple-gray around the outside of my iris. I polish them a very dark purple—most people think that it’s black, but it’s not. There is a sort of matching of my nails, hair and eye and I like it—for as much as I liked the white and how neutral it was, the dark is equally neutral.

So I met this guy online and he asks me to meet him for drinks…and then he proceeds to ask me if I would have extensions placed on my nails prior to meeting him, because it "turned him on". I thought about it for about 10 seconds and turned down the date. He’s asked me out again since then and I told him that we had been all through this, thank you, but my answer is no.

I’ll tell you why. I had never met him, didn’t know if I liked him and here was someone who had the gall to ask me to spend the better part of a hundred bucks to “turn him on”. He wasn’t taking me to the Oscar’s… it was drinks, and that wasn’t anything close to an equal exchange. An equal exchange is the minimum I would be willing to receive from a man who hadn’t met me…but I always expect more. Had I said yes prior to meeting him I could only imagine what he would have asked me for next…maybe a three way with a dog and an donkey.

Here was a man who wasn’t careful around women; he chose to behave carelessly and I, as a woman, didn’t want to be with him because of that behavior. I’m not sure what woman would. I had another guy that I liked very much; after alot of flirting, he told me that he had the value set of a 13 year old. At least he knew himself, but at that time he wasn’t willing to change. Perhaps someday he’ll get that I desired the 43 year old man, not the 13 year old who showed up.

So I look at these women (and men) who might have found their forever love and they are foolishly squandering their chance at the reality of real love by watching a virtual courtship unfold that they have no business watching. I know that I wouldn’t have. Nothing that Brad did with any woman prior to his making a commitment to Emily is any of her business—and yet the media claims today say that what she can’t forgive Brad for, is his “cheating” with the other contestants. There wasn’t any cheating; he hadn’t yet proclaimed his love or devotion—and she certainly had not for him. Foolish women, foolish choices to bring up past behavior that had nothing to do with her. She has his heart, she has her ring; she has his intention.

He has told her by his actions that he may not be perfect, but his love for her is. Foolishly she is asking for him to go back in time and undo what he did. She isn’t allowing (as a man) for the fruit of his love to mature and take its own time to ripen. She doesn’t see the man in front of her willing to take not only her but her child into a loving relationship where he was joyfully, happily willing to step up to the plate and be everything that he could be for her to be happy, safe and secure. She doesn’t see the good in him—that give the proper encouragement and inspiration he would rise to heights that he didn’t know within himself existed to fulfill the obligation he was ready to make.

I wonder how many men like Brad become broken forever after everything he could give her wasn’t enough.

I wonder how many women walk away from a good man because their courtship wasn’t perfect and wait for the fairy tale, while their “sell-by” date begins to expire.

When I look at it from the outside, men, real men, grown men ask so little of women that they love. They live to give to her. They live to make her happy and all they ask for from a woman is the chance to do so; to prove themselves worthy of her love.

Squandering Gifts

I’m not pretty. Well, not in the Aishwarya Rai or Vanessa Marcil kind of  'pretty' that I’d prefer, but more of the da Vinci 'Virgin of the Rocks' classically structured face. In what feels like a past life, I was, for a time an artist’s muse. There is 'art' out there in the world of me; paintings of me, photographs of me. I once had an art critic say of my beauty that “I was as timeless as art itself”. Personally, I felt that was kinder than I deserved; but beauty is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder.

And I beheld that beauty…a few years of art history appreciation had me realize that every culture has its own kind standard and that time brings its own standard to the fore. I’ve recently read some of Shmuley Boteach’s books—(I’m just about ready to start my fourth); he frequently talks about a lack of sensuality in today’s sexuality.

One hundred years ago women who were robust and fleshy were the most desirous—it was the sensual experience of the softness and suppleness of her body that made her opposed to a man’s rugged muscularity and hardness. It was the seduction of the differences to the differences that made a woman alluring. Even today, in parts of North Africa, a heavy woman is the social standard for having one hot babe on your arm.

I had an email today from a girlfriend in Spain. She’s by any standard a Slovak beauty. She told me she had gotten heavy (me too) and that she realized that everywhere she had lived in the U.S. and Europe when she was unhappy, she gained weight. When she was happy again, she lost it. I’ve thought about that today and she’s right, I’ve had the same experience.

A year ago I was at the gym twice a day, some cardio and weights in the morning, back for a zumba dance class at night. For all of the years that I took dance classes—from modern to belly dancing, I didn’t know how much I would love Latin rhythms—and I do. I don’t speak a word of Spanish, and wish I could sing along…but I can’t. The closest I’ve come is that I did have an invitation today from her to come spend some time with her in Spain…she’ll be happy to read that I’m thinking about it…

I went to the gym and ran into one of my old zumba classmates. One of them said to me “since that guy, you haven’t been the same—when are you coming back?” She was right, too. In the last year, I’ve lost a part of my spirit. I thought about my friend in Spain and how right now she’s in a relationship with a great guy and it’s not enough. She said it wasn’t about him, but confusion within herself; that he’s an amazing guy and would be sad to leave him but she doesn’t really feel fulfilled since leaving the U.S. a couple of years ago. She’s missing the comfort of closeness of friends or family even though he’s perfectly compatible and wonderful to her.

That led me to thinking about 'that guy' and gifts. It is a gift for someone to offer you friendship. The older you get, the less likely it is you make friends; acquaintances, yes. Maybe you share one particular interest—or you work with someone that you spend some time with outside of the office, but someone you can share the intimacies of your life with, a real friend, someone that you bond with is a completely different story.

Do they squander a gift when someone chooses not want you as a friend? I feel that it is so. It’s interesting to me because at the same time I offered ‘that guy’ friendship and he turn away from it, he claimed that he was lonely. Depression: internalized anger masquerading as loneliness. I always say that people come into your life for a reason. Sometimes the reason is for you; sometimes the reason is for them. People wonder what the meaning of life is…experience. Life is about experience. God places you on a path where doors open and doors close. One path might lead to happiness, one to change, another to pain. One leads you closer to you goals, one takes you further.

I’m not pretty, but I had always had a banging body—(God portions his gifts). From the time I was about 12, I was always the hottest chick in class. It’s easy for me to be sexy. It’s easy for me to manipulate with my sexuality. I have a black belt in flirting; I’ve learned to temper it. Today, I’m torn between having a great body or not. Having a great body gets you sex; it doesn’t get you loved. It’s not even a compliment when a guy tells me how hot I am—it means absolutely nothing—like someone telling me that my eyes are green. BUT when I think about the fact that I’ve gained weight as a result of unhappiness, I have to admit, that I’ve squandered a gift. The women that I know that are unhappy in relationships are all overweight—every single one of them found comfort in food that they weren’t finding in the arms of a man. So it’s a catch 22. If you’re overweight, you don’t attract a man, when you’re thin you attract attention but not the kind that you want; so you become heartbroken and eat only to push away the men who could potentially give you exactly what you’re looking for. There is a power in beauty if you know exactly how to use it.

After The Final Rose…

Yup, I was right. It was the blond—Emily. The reasons why are…

Pat always says that a woman’s only job is to look good, smell good, taste good, feel good and sound good. When Ed and I were together I loved when he used to say those exact things to me…

She also says that a man who loves you will cherish, protect and provide for you. Our bachelor Brad was not lacking in his verbal declarations of those very same words either.

When a man falls in love with a woman, he falls in love with her in the “spaces”. Not when he is with her, but how much he misses her when he’s not with her…how there is something missing when she’s gone.

Brad declared his love by saying that he was excited to see her; wanted to protect her; he wanted to take care of her; he wanted to be a family man and that he was “in” for whatever that meant; that he wanted to be her daughter’s father—not a step father . When Emily asked what being a father meant to him, he said to love, provide, protect, be friends with her daughter, be a disciplinarian when needed and he was willing to take the good and bad, and the bad and good. (When a man loves a woman, he loves and takes care of everything that she loves.) He asked for the chance to be the best father I can be.

He said what he loved about Emily was her “aura”. When a man falls in love, it is her essence, not anything specific about her…it is her everything. He said he was buying her an engagement ring with intent. He said he loved that she’s a lady; she’s poised; she’s private; she makes me want to be a better person. And that is her virtue; a man will always choose virtue.

She said she wasn’t ready to move to Austin. He said she wasn’t losing his love. She’s the one because he said so; his choice.

He rubs the fourth finger of her left hand; the ring finger, the finger that is directly attached to the heart, he rubs to bring warmth and blood.

That reminded me of a time when I was dating an attorney. He used to take the ring that would wear on my left hand, fourth finger and remove it just above my knuckle. Over and over he would practice taking it off and slipping a ring on to my finger. I'd let him without saying a word; I pretended not to notice. Ultimately, he didn't ask me to marry him, but he "tried me on" and I liked it...I would have said yes to him.

And there were other clues for Chantal…yin and yang behavior.

Chantal was masculine and yang in her behavior. She chased him—told him repeatedly how she felt, she made him gifts—he gave her none. A man will only love you, if you give him the space to. As a woman, you must train yourself not to step into the spaces between you. If you step into the space, he backs up; he can’t move toward you.

I learned that lesson when I met Tony Robbins. I was up on stage with a line full of people and I watched them hugging him and telling him how he had changed their lives. At best, he tolerated their behavior; no one seemed to notice. When he came over to me, I put my hand out to shake it and I introduced myself. He touched me, took a step towards, smiled and told me I had beautiful eyes. I let him, and he entered my space as a man, not a speaker. That moment was far more intimate than stroking him.

Brad’s behavior toward Chantal was different because she behaved differently. She moved into his yang space and he treated her accordingly. With Emily as she stepped out of the helicopter he protected her by saying “watch your step”. With Chantal he said he took her shark diving and told her he admired her strength, confidence and bravery—yang, masculine traits. Do you see? She behaved masculinity by professing her love FIRST, giving gifts FIRST, by slapping him when she met him, by saying to him and his family “you better pick me”. Because Chantal didn’t behave like a woman, he didn’t feel that he had to treat her like one…he said he was himself and comfortable—like two male friends. With Emily he said he is always nervous, he kisses her hands and tells her I miss you when I’m not with you.

There is that old expression that says a man is man until he meets a lady, and then he becomes a gentleman. Brad say that she’s worth it to try to change for and that I wouldn’t want her to feel anything less than loved. He asked Emily to give him the opportunity to love you for the rest of your life.

In the end Chantal said that she had found another man. She was lying. She wouldn't have cried if it were the truth. She said she felt stupid that although she thought he was "the one", he didn't even love her. The signs were everywhere that he didn't....she just didn't know how to read them.

Virtue and the Bachelor

OK, I'm making it official--and I'll post this prior to my finishing this blog entry; I'm picking that Brad will ask the blond with the little girl to be his wife--and for only one reason; her choosing virtue over her working for his affections. Virtue is a lifestyle choice.

I don't typically watch this show; I think that it's cruel to watch someone who is the object of you're hearts desire court, kiss, be potentially sexual with and be crushed with jealousy moment after moment in the show. I don't want to be that involved as part of that weekly prurience. I also don't believe that a woman should ever have to chase a man for his time, interest or affection--he should be chasing her. But I caught this show a few times this season. Our blond told the bachelor that she had only been in love once, that she found herself pregnant at the same time her fiance died in a plane crash. She's 24 and hadn't introduced any suitors to her daughter and initially wasn't sure she wanted to introduce little Ricki to Brad.

In a way, I'm sad for her. Considering that she's 24, she acts as if she's at least 34; somewhere she's lost a part of her youth to life and circumstance. And I think that when you compare her to the other girls who vied for his attention by "stealing" time with him she was different. When Brad asked her to spend the night with him her response was that she needed to be a good role model, but she would stay and TALK with him. Letting him know that no, she would not be sleeping with him. When Brad did the home visit, he said that he wanted to kiss her, but he wouldn't because her daughter was upstairs. She let him know that if they were to be married, she would always be upstairs. He respected her enough throughout the show not to take more from her than she was willing to give at any time; by the time she chose to introduce her to him, Brad perceived it as it should have been--not just a gift, but give back for all he had given to her--first. Most of all, he cupped her face when he kissed her...that gentleness of treasuring her in his hands.

Unlike the other girls, she didn't ask for more, she didn't have to. She stood still where she was in the world and let Brad chose whether or court her or not. I believe that if Brad would have chosen not to, she would have not been any worse for wear as the other women were shown cried and died over their rejection.

But truth be told, the women who were sent home, did it to themselves. They became prematurely attached and monogamous with a man prior to his willingness to commit to them. He showed them by his actions that he was willing to continue to date and be open to the possibility that another woman would win his heart.

Granted, some couldn't help it. Nature has it's way of oxytocin bonding women to men. Chemical addiction: dopamine, testosterone, oxytocin...chained and bound. But of the others, the women acted like men. The brunette who's also on tonight slapped him upon meeting her. I would have sent her home that first night. She could not have been more disrespectful to him as a man standing there with his heart open to possibility...he may find some poetic justice in her rejection tonight...then there was the beautiful one who manipulated him into being physical with him on the beach in front of the other girls...what did she really think she'd accomplish by doing that? Treating him that way was treating him like a child who was unable to decide for himself who he wanted by his side...she couldn't possibly know better than he did who was right for him...

I'll continue this tomorrow and we'll see if I was right...the heart wants what it wants...

Change

I’ve been asked the same thing twice over the last 24 hours...and I gave unsolicited advice to a third. “Could I commit to him/her?”  “Would I have long regrets about the person?" "When is it enough?”

Him: I’ve been wondering a lot about this lately because I am 39 years old, I’ve never been engaged or married and I’ve never been close. I always presumed I get married at some point, but the older I get, the more I wonder if I ever will.

I have a great girlfriend. We’ve been together for the last 3 years, and though she seems totally in love with me; I am not sure I feel the same way about her. It’s not the live happily ever after type of love; she feels more like a best friend.

I’m seriously thinking about letting her go and seeing how I feel about the whole thing when I am alone. That is my dilemma. I've had some trophy girlfriends and some others that just weren't worth the effort.

It seems unusual that I am with someone who I am so relaxed with, but I'm too relaxed. I’ve really thought about this for the last week because when she emailed me about working our working on real intimacy, and she said that it was sometime in early 2009 that I last really showed any effort or interest.

At first I thought she was kidding and then thought about it and realized she was right. She is either really patient or I am kidding the both of us.

I don't miss her when I have to work away for weeks at a time, I don't get jealous about anything she does while I am away, I don't get horny when she's around me. I'm actually kind of bored.

So I'm wondering is this what it can be like when you finally settle down and accept yourself and your partner instead of needing them to be a porn star and a saint all at once, or am I supposed to feel like this, and get none of the excitement of being with her?

The thing about her is that she has so many qualities I really value and admire in a person, and ultimately want in a partner. I've been really reluctant to end the relationship, though I think that I have wanted to for years. I don't really talk about feelings with anyone so thanks for being there.

There are few decent young women willing to stay with a man long term without being married. Women who don’t know their value will take any offer—such as living with a man without getting the commitment they really want; they consider any offer from a man good enough. They do not see their true worth.

A good woman won't wait forever. Most women want the status and security of being a wife. I don't mean that in a gold digger/money grubbing way. I mean it in the way of “if I have a car accident and need someone to hold my hand as they wheel me into surgery, I want the security of knowing that someone loves me enough to be there waiting for me when I come out”. That someone was willing to stand up before god, my friends and his family and say, yes, I promise that I'll be there through the thick and thin.

Socially, for a woman, it has always been--from the beginning of time that a married woman has that status. She has the protection, a man she loves and hopefully children--a fuller life than a woman who is betrothed and certainly not single women. The terms widow and spinster have their negativity for reasons.

I understand that for a man, the sexual attraction for any and every hot thing that walks past him is temptation—a chance to trade-up. I truly believe that is a societal problem--that hook ups, friends with benefits, social networking and easy access to porn really preclude a man from making a good decision for companionship in his life. A trade of sexual play for real intimacy leads a man to a life of single hood; one where he didn't ever get to raise his children or play with his grandchildren.

I wouldn't tell you to wait for the moon and stars--it's the addiction of the high of the excitement that you're looking for. And men who move from woman to woman when they come off of the dopamine chemical rush end up in a vicious circle of depression from being tortured by the ups and downs of acceptance and refusal.

That head over heels attraction--if you stay long enough of her eventually wears off and becomes replaced with something comfortable. Every couple goes through that. Dependable is good. Dependable means that you'll wake up tomorrow morning with your car where you left it, the sun in the sky and your kids tucked safely away under the blankets.

If she's a good woman; someone who'll be a good mother, has her ethics aligned with yours and you have enough sexual chemistry to want to touch her, marry her.

No one on their worst day is worth being married to, but on both of your best days, it makes every moment worth it. If she's valuable in your life—really valuable meaning your life is better off with her than without her AND you have the potential for commitment, compatibility and chemistry, marry her--because what you may find is that you've traded her looking for more and ended up with something less.

The questions to ask yourself are ethically are we about the same? Would I consider that I would need to call a doctor, lawyer or the cops over anything she does in her day to day life? Are we on the same page about religion and how to raise the kids? Can we negotiate time? How much we need to be together and apart? Who pays for what? How much money do we save or spend? Are we on the same page about who raises the kids and takes care of the household? Would she take care of me if I were sick? How tied is he/she to their families? Is that something I like or dislike? Would he/she be a good father/mother? Would she move cross country if my career depended on it?

Where both men and woman end up unhappy is being tied to a fantasy. I'm often surprised by when both men and women believe that in time, things will be different. I read a blog the other day where this man was openly writing to a woman he said he had waited for--he waited for life, her life, his life all the stars to be aligned and woke up on day to find out that he had waited for nothing...that it would never be between them. But I saw that from the beginning. She told him from the beginning that it would never be him; he didn't want to believe her. When a man tells you something, believe him. When a woman tells you something, believe her. Don't believe that "if I love enough, things will change". They will not--and that is your compatibility. Does your partner have the capability to commit to you?

You need to think about her as someone you would choose to go into a partnership with because ultimately that is what a marriage is...and just because you think that you know the answer she would give, there might be something that you yet don't know about her...you have to ask...and listen to her answers.

Only then will you know that either the two of you can move forward to building a life together, OR you need to be kind enough to let her go and find a man who will give her what she needs.

Power

I was on a site yesterday that I hang out on and the topic turned to religion, and the purity of gene pool to be maintained within that religion after an article that was written by a member of the Clergy was published that basically said that we should stick to our own kind.

I was of the belief that he was right. That ‘designer dogs’ didn’t live as long, weren’t as healthy overall and more prone to genetic abnormalities than the general population.

I was on for hours close to 9 hours having men try to argue points with me. Now, I am very aware that you cannot and should not even try to “out-argue” with a man; you cannot. But what I found most interesting was how quickly it degraded into childish name-calling instead of a discourse of intellect.

I was called a man, a troll, stupid, a liar, and a myth believer, that I didn’t speak a second language that I do speak….and then a woman jumped in. She called me a flea bitten twat, pseudo intellectual and a series of other names when I did nothing—absolutely nothing to insult her…and then it occurred to me…it was power.

She is a broadcaster and was threatened by what she felt was another women “in her house” who might usurp her power base there but virtue of attention. What the guys said to me didn’t bother me as much; she broke the girl code…

Dogs don’t bark at parked cars…period. if I weren’t intriguing, I would not have been able to hold the interest of men for hours and hours and hours. Whether they agreed with me or not…I was captivating. I said to her “name me another woman on this forum who can do what I did”. She continued to insult me. Eventually I placed her on my “ignore her posts” list. She doesn’t hold any value in my life.

I had a private message about her, that she had passed nudes of herself around the site and had made dates with men from that site and stood them up.

I had tapped into a different kind of power. That is a gift that I’ve also always known that I had. People tell me things…and I don’t know why. They are little gifts from them to me. Sometimes—like this, they are little bits of ammunition to be stored up and used when appropriate. Other times there is a power given to me in knowing what’s coming next. I would know who was losing their office, who was being moved, promoted, fired…I even had my closest girlfriend at work ask me to tell her truth, was I really sleeping with the boss or how else could I possibly know that much?

I don’t know why people tell me what they do, but they do. The often give me things as well. One of my first mentors would train a room full of mentees but all day long, he didn’t take his eyes off of mine—it was as if I were the only person in the room he was talking to. The other person running the mentoring would get angry at me and ask me to ask the lecturer “since I seemed to be able to get whatever I wanted out of him”. LOL. I heard that this was Bill Clinton’s magic—that in a room full of people he could make the person he was talking to feel as if they were the only person in the room.

There wasn’t anything romantic with me between me and my mentor. He just felt the connection to teach to me. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. It did when I was in college, too. One of my professors gave me keys to his classroom to use the equipment whenever I wanted to; he gave me a key to the elevator (staff only). And today, if you said my name to him, he knows exactly who I am. How many students pass through a professor’s life? How many can say that?

I’m starting to rethink spending so much time on that site. It isn’t feminine—although I did have one man who was British post to tell me he was swimming the Atlantic with a rose between his teeth to come and get me. I’m not sure that it’s good for me to be there. Although the appearance of White knights are unexpectedly wonderful-- the world is a darker place without them.

Being there fills my alpha masculine side. Left brained, intellect, thought processes, dissection, language, reason. But the pull always is to my feminine side and how much I would prefer to reside in my house of my right brain. Feeling centered…nothing more than the sensual…retraining myself to trace the steps back to my youth. I believe it is the only path that makes sense for me to find love.

I know this intellectually. I’ve studied this long enough, I’ve got it. It’s never one specific thing that a man falls in love with – it’s all of you. Most men couldn’t pick “the moment” that he fell in love with you, they certainly don’t know what it is that they love, they just know how you make them feel, he watches the people around you and that to him, you are irreplaceable … Pat says that a man falls in love with a woman’s essence, and nothing in particular—except that when a man chooses to marry, he marries virtue.

From my feminine side my answers to the questions they asked me would have been different and I know it.

If a man asks you a lot of questions, he’s intrigued… It’s how you answer him that matters – meaning not wowing him with your brilliance or competitive nature – not preaching; not teaching. It’s answering him softly, sweetly; your smile, your eyes, your smell, your taste, your laughter, your looks; he falls in love with the way you feel in his arms…

And so men test… does she tell secrets and too much information? Is she a gold digger, does she turn into a snarling bitch when I’m a half hour late, does she love kids? All of that is who you are at your core; not whether or not you have an advanced degree, not whether or not you think the latest Jim Carrey movie was wonderful. If a woman get’s pissy over what he thinks is little to nothing, he moves on – she’s either considered a crazy psycho bitch, desperate, or moved into the friend category--quickly.

In comparison to a man (unless you are choosing to be competing with him) who you are or should be is, as Dr. Phil calls it, a soft place to fall – a respite from the work-a-day world, a place of peacefulness and playfulness.

Pat says a woman’s only job in relation to her man is to look good, sound good, smell good, taste good and feel good. Sounding good isn’t argumentative, cursing, bitching, complaining, gossiping, telling secrets, training or being more evasive than necessary.

Its unending work for me and I wish it weren’t so. Beta woman have a far easier time—but my girlfriend always reminds me betas are far less interesting. It’s an unending choice to make, to flex more muscle than is necessary, to cast a line too far; and to know when reel it back in.

Assets

I was thinking about my last post and the gifts given to the women that I have the privilege to love. A woman’s warmth, brightness, softness, understanding, playfulness, giggles, and inner joy are all her gifts. They are her individual assets to draw in and keep a man.

But I thought about assets another way this morning and that is what her assets are to a man.

Pat says there are different types of relationships, but I’m only going to discuss one—the one that I believe that given a choice, I believe most women would want, the one of a covenant. Where one partner chooses to have their thoughts respected and the other their feelings cherished. One of you chooses to be the breadwinner and one the homemaker, one is yin, and the other is yang. My choice always is to be the yin feminine energy.

When a woman acquiesces herself to a man—it is because he has offered her a good deal; her life is better off with him in it than without him. I understand this fully. He offers her the status and stability of being a wife.

Let us admit that for all of the fairy tales that we thought women’s liberation might bring us, I believe as both men and women we lost far more than we gained. We lost identity—who to “be” in the world.

There is far more social status in the world for a woman to be a wife…and even more so if she has children. The status of being a wife stands shoulders above the fiancé status, which stands shoulders above being single. I suppose the only marital status that is looked down upon is a mistress who became a wife through nothing more than a chance upgrade. That woman will always viewed down upon in thought (if not actions) with vengeance for having crossed the social line of disgrace for sleeping with another woman’s husband.

Ladies, from the time they are children work to achieve societal harmony through graces and pleasantries that a woman of less repute doesn’t abide by. Pat says that the only difference between a wife and a prostitute is the blessing; that marriage is an equitable exchange of sex for money. It’s difficult to think of it in those terms—that a man’s love is worthless to her without money or position, because it is without power—but stripping it down to its lowest common denominator, she is right.

For what we thought women’s liberation would bring us-- modernity, intellectual challenge and a power change, we couldn’t—and didn’t overcome our biology.

A man chooses a wife because she is an asset to him. He sacrifices a poly-amorous lifestyle to gain a woman-- sensual and tactile; for her beauty and meaning that she brings to his life. It is an asset to him to have the convenience of a readily available sexual partner; it is an asset of proximity to body that he wants to touch. It is an asset to have a woman bring a level of spirituality into a man’s life that he doesn’t have without her. It is an asset to have her social the ties of entertaining abilities and family. It is an asset to chose to mate at a young age instead of having a life where he as a man is too old, too tired or too inconvenienced to bring children into the world-- and live long enough, healthfully enough to have loved both his children and grandchildren. Progeny brings its own rewards.

Lust propels a man--period. Desire is the intangible force that breaths a life of its own into a deep seeded quest to be made real. Desire is bridge between you and that which you know is greater than you are alone. Desire is fed from the ego and impossible to ignore; you cannot help but surrender to it as it envelopes you. Desire is instinct; men are hunters and women nothing more than prey—creatures for which a man needs a challenge to fight for, to struggle for against adversity, to compete for, to conquer and ultimately capture. Giving is masculine; it is his instinct to give. Every man he must decide for himself whether or not to pursue a particular woman. It is in his biology. Suddenly, he heads to the gym, he gets into a fight. He hones his physical skills in order to do battle with other men for the most desirable women.

But, ultimately, a man must lead a woman into trusting him. He must do the work to entice her into liking him. He must court a woman into a committed relationship with him.

When a man chooses a woman, she becomes “the one” as matter of her not comparing to any other. She’s “the one” every moment of every day by virtue of his shear will—she’s the one because he said so; end of conversation. She’s the one when a man believes that giving to her, protecting her and cherishing her are his sole responsibility. He cannot help himself; he is helpless to do anything less than to love her in that way. He does what he needs to in order to make her dreams, her happiness a reality.

I’m smiling writing this remembering Lisa’s wedding last October. When her father made his toast, he turned to his son in law and said as of midnight, my fiscal year ended, she’s now your responsibility; and with that took out a scissor and cut up Lisa’s credit cards. We all laughed, but at its core, how true that statement was. Here was a man (Marc) who took care of a woman (his daughter Lisa) that he loved. He gave that preciousness to the care of another man who proved himself worthy by his actions of being equally capable of taking care of the woman that HE (Jonathan) loved. I wish I lived in a time when a man would ask for a woman’s hand from her father and it would be granted only after much financial and emotional consideration. It was easier that way.

Regret

Regret. I hate the word, I hate the feeling. I hate that for as powerful a woman as I am, I cannot turn back time. Stupid moments, foolish things said, behaviors that was dismissive before I had an opportunity to see—really see the man standing in front of me. How often have I looked at a man and based on a single moment of perception considered him unworthy of the challenge of the acquiescence of having all of me. I regret how today a woman’s life is spent guarding her boundaries by repelling intruders while trying to maintaining a wholeness of herself within that boundary. I’ve regretfully learned that you cannot. It’s arrogant; it’s lonely and pulls me further from my ultimate goal of wanting one man to spend the rest of my life with.

Part of the problem is the time the societal norms that we live in. Hook-ups, friends with benefits, pick up artist manuals, and ever present feminine men that have been sheltered by over protective mothers, absentee fathers and nary a “man’s man” role model to be found. These pubescent boys have never been taught that at their hearts, they are warriors; that honor means doing the right thing no matter what they feel. That sacrifice is a man’s purview. That making his woman happy by constantly earning her, being worthy of having her brings him no greater joy except the birth of a wanted child.

I have to wonder if men even know how often a woman is asked for sex. Even my trash man didn’t have any qualms about saying to me that he’s wanted to eff me for 3 years. I said to him, what are you talking about? I’ve only known you for 8 months. His response was that it FELT like three years to him.

Do men know how a woman could walk through the door of a mall and have a man follow her while she was shopping and barely acknowledging him just for the opportunity to talk to her? Do they know how often a woman’s answer has to be no? In the 30 second size-up game of pass or play, more often than not, it is the answer from a woman is going to be “pass”. Do men know how often we say things to them just to have them back off? I’ll regretfully admit there were times that decision was a very wrong one.

There are man-boys who think asking a girl who they are not in a relationship with to show up at a conference sans bra or panties but wearing fish net stockings is anything close to appropriate; or instant messaging a woman asking her to come spend the weekend at his place because he has a tongue that doesn’t quit before you even know her last name is the right way to approach a woman. Perhaps men aren’t taught to be a better man. Perhaps I’ve regretfully missed learning the skill of how not tell a man verbally how to treat me, but for him to choose to change his behavior through my having changed mine. How do you learn to show a man by your actions that their behavior is not acceptable, try again, without rejecting them completely? Perhaps it is in a man’s nature that he cannot overcome to have not missed one single mating opportunity to spread their seed far and wide. Perhaps the very wrong ideologies of women’s liberation have ruined it for all of us and none of us really have any idea of how to behave.

I’m not all that special; and yet by virtue of being a woman, I am. I read somewhere once of a man who wrote “the thing about women is their nothingness”. I love that. By a man’s metric we are made of sugar and spice and everything nice—but we cannot be compared (Adam’s) apples to apples. And so, man’s fascination with us is unending but it is not enough. It’s not enough to have me give up my freedom without you’re proving that you are able bodied. Able to compete, conquer and control your vision of the world. Able to cherish, protect and provide for me. Able to be unwavering in your decision that a woman is THE ONE by shear will. Nothing would make me happier than to give every part of me to a just one man; all he needs to show up—and as the kids say, “come correct”.

Memoirs of a Geisha and the Joy Luck Club are my favorite movies of all time. Memoirs for the constant reminder that all women survive by being flexible; that life, like water, constant flows and carves its own path.

I can remember having chills when watching Joy Luck for the first time during the part where the women whose husband was leaving her is told that she didn’t know her worth. It resonates with me whenever I hear those words. I heard them again this week on the TV show the Housewives of Miami. (Yes, I watch all of the Housewives.)

And I suppose it’s interesting for me because for as unusual as it is, I’ve never been jealous of another woman. I see their beauty, I see their allurement, I see how men can be drawn to them as individuals, but never jealous in that I wished that I had what they did, because I have my own gifts. But I appreciate them; Melissa’s coquettishness, Jenna’s virtue, Jana’s feistiness, Alli’s love of all things sporty without being a tom boy, Lisa’s love of all things fuzzy, shiny and girly. There’s a word in Yiddish called kvelling that doesn’t really translate into English except the best description is a combination of love and enjoyment of watching the development of qualities in another. That’s the love that I have for those girls in my life.

As for my gifts, they’ve changed over the years. I used to have what one of my mentors called ‘reverent power’. That I could walk into a room and heads would turn. I’ve purposely dimmed the light on that part of my life because right now, it’s far more important to be in a relationship with a man and allow him to be the dominant partner allowing him his light to shine. I don’t want to be the more dominant or masculine energy—it attracts feminine men. Yin and Yang…equal strength in balance.

But even as the wattage is turned down, it happens; I’m noticed. I was shopping the other day and mentally retarded boy started talking to me telling me that I must like shopping because he had seen me in another store the week before. He was right—I was there. I popped by a house to drop something off and the gardener told me that he knew me. I told him I didn’t think we had ever met. He told me that I had lived near the mansion that he had worked at years before. He was right too.

I was waiting to be seated in a restaurant a few weeks ago and someone came over to ask me how I like being famous—lol. Last summer I was walking in downtown Princeton and a girl stopped me to tell me that she’d seen my movies—more lol. I’ve been stopped just to be asked who I am and when I introduced myself I was re-asked “no, who ARE you?” I’m smiling thinking that I’ve never been in a movie—although I was once on a TV show when I was about 8 and I was an extra in a TV commercial as an adult….but I’ll save that story for another time. It’s doubtful that anyone remembers me from either of those experiences. Maybe I should have done the national infomercial about real estate when I was asked to last year. It’s about power; it’s about aura I suppose. That “it” factor that would make only a man stronger and smarter than am the right match for a romantic partner. I regret that I’ve passed by men that might have been right for me had I given them a chance. I regret that those men wouldn’t give me a second one. And I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve made the mistake of stepping outside of the limelight when it appears that these moments that keep coming across my path is the universe calling me to step back in.