Dating Advise

Always a difficult subject this one. You can't get away from it, dating and sex are inextricably interlinked. If you are meeting people romantically at some point you will want to go to bed with each other. For those who are religious, sex will remain within the boundaries of marriage. For many others sex is initially a test of compatibility - a big one. If you don't get on well in bed, you won't be going much further. Modern generations are sexually demanding, they know how to give and receive pleasure and expect the same in return.

If you have certain sexual outlooks and preferences you actively seek the same. There is no stigma about this, the fact is, we are guided in our choices by our sexual view of the world. If we are shy or sex does not play a big part in our world then we may actively seek someone similar. There is no point dating a stallion if we don't enjoy sex. Then again if we are shy, maybe we are seeking a teacher. Marrying someone as a virgin is often now seen as too risky in the bigger scheme of things due to the risk of sexual incompatibility.

The importance of sexual compatibility cannot be underestimated. For years to come you want to be stimulated by your partner and you stimulate them. The desire needs to be there otherwise your relationship may feel that it is lacking. A special closeness may be lost. Let us be clear however, we are not necessarily talking about penetrative sex. There are many forms of sexual behavior and I refer only to our compatibility, in whatever form it may take. If we are to share each other's bed, so we need to want to be in that bed next to the person we choose. Therefore, for those who say that sex is not important, then their partner must feel the same way too.

I once took a survey in our office of whether men liked to give oral sex to their partners. Two of the men said that their girlfriends did not like it and they themselves did not enjoy giving it. The girls in our office were astounded and laughed saying that this cannot be true. They argued that the women probably did enjoy it but it was the men who did not enjoy giving that pleasure. I don't have the answers in this example except to suggest that the women were probably right and that here we were seeing a one-sided view of sexual compatibility in the two relationships mentioned.

Another issue worth mentioning is the ease in which sex frequently occurs in the early dates. This is a great shame. Certainly from a woman's point of view, however emancipated you may be, your greatest weapon and gift is your body. A man who is attracted to you will want to sleep with you, yes. However if you really want that man and would like to build a relationship it is absolutely essential that you do not sleep with him in the early stages. Desire over a longer period will capture the feelings and interest of a man. His emotions and feelings will become heightened the more elusive you are sexually. There is absolutely no gain to be had in having sex on the first few dates unless your aim is purely sexual too.

I cannot spell this out too strongly. If you want to win a man's heart, do not sleep with him immediately. An honest man will tell you that if you have sex with a girl on a first date, you may enjoy it, but you are almost certain not to want to date her because you were simply too easy. Men are hunters, then enjoy the chase, and the longer it goes on, the greater the respect and the more likely you will win his heart. Within limits - too long and you may lose him! he is a man, not a saint. I admit that this sounds like a sermon, but it is a tactic that works. If you simply want sex then fine, but if you want a relationship, hold off.

Guys, if all you want is sex, then do the lady a favor and go and pay for a magazine. You will tell her whatever she wants to hear to get her into bed. You can be slick, calculating and tell amazing lies but the following morning you will simply be seen for what you are, a lizard. The fact is, if you are a guy and reading this hopefully you are looking to date properly and are not looking for cheap thrills. In which case great. But do your dates a favor and back off from pressuring for sex in the early stages. Being sexy does not mean wanting sex. And another tip guys, leave the sex talk for later, especially in the early stages of dating. It comes across as sleazy and manipulative.
And finally. The first time you sleep together will be amazing if there is great anticipation and build up but can equally be an absolute disaster. Frequently it is the latter. It takes time to get to know each other in bed so take your time and never base the quality of sex on that very first time. Things can change and get a whole lot better. This is where your communication skills will be at their most important.

Okay so some basic points to think about:
- Never sleep with someone on the first date
- Do not chat about sex on the first few dates, especially if you are a man. Retain your enigma factor
- Never ever speak about sex with your ex when dating
- Never admit to how many people you have slept with
- Date people you are physically attracted to as a start
- Sex is generally important, let's not pretend otherwise
- Being sexy is different to being available
- Kissing does not mean sex
- Have sex the first time where you are most comfortable
- Remember that if you want to leave it is best not to sleep with your partner at your apartment
- Always practise safe sex, there is no excuse
- Good sex is a good start, bad sex can get better though
- Avoid people who are selfish in their sexual needs unless you share them
- Never do anything you are not comfortable with
- Never ever be rushed into sex when dating

Being single means different things to each of us. For some it is a way of life. For a small minority, it is the way we always will be. For most of us, its is a constant battle with optimism. Hope springs eternal they say. We weren't designed to spend our lives alone. For the solitary monk it may be a life of dedication but for us mere mortals, its is a state of being that we hope is temporary.

Being single is not easy. It means first of all that we are daily responsible for every decision we make. We can't share decision making because there is no one close enough to share things with. We trust our friends but we will not have formed as close a bond as we do in a long term personal relationship. Therefore it us up to us to decide what we do each day, whether we go to work, what we will have for dinner, where we will go at a weekend, what we do on vacation and where and how we socialize.

When we get home in an evening there isn't anyone there (which is why so often we have cats and dogs) to welcome us. We prepare dinner alone (or don't bother), run a bath, take a shower and generally live a solitary existence punctuated by our social life and friends as well as work routine. One of the primary issues about being single is not being able to discuss things on our mind when we want to. In social circles we can to an extent and we may call up friends on the phone but this lacks the deeper understanding and compassion we receive from a close partner in a relationship.

We like to play ideas off each other, discuss, talk, think aloud and have pillow talk about the future. All of this is missing when single. Occasional dates or romantic encounters may provide passing closeness but in effect we remain single still. There is something interesting on the TV, but we won't chat about that until we are at work. We have an ailment that worries us, who do we discuss that with? There is an issue with a person at work, what should we do. Friends and family play their part but they don't fill that singleness we are likely to feel.

Cooking for one is a painful experience. What is the point of cooking a nice meal if there is no one to share it with. There is a great movie but we will watch it alone. We need to go shopping and get something new for the apartment but we are going to have to do without the fun of deciding together. Then of course there is sex. Sex-for-one is well known to most singles but its generally not what we were designed for.

Close relationships offer companionship, understanding, empathy, friendship as well as love and romance and without them, we are pretty much left to our own devices to fill that void. When we are younger there is so much to focus on that it may not be such an issue but as we get older we begin to discover that visiting the wonders of the world alone is deeply dissatisfactory.

Being single is a heightened sense because our society emphasizes couples. From meals for two in the grocery store, to paying for single supplements in hotels; much is set against the single person. Why do we pay extra for a single bed when on vacation? The we have our friends who are in couples which does much to heighten our sense of singledom. Dinner parties mean we are excluded due to not having a partner, or we are matched up with some geek we have little in common with by friends desperate to pair us off.

Adult society in the West is made up of approximately 33% single people and this is increasing at a remarkable rate. Admittedly in many areas of the service industry, singles are being seen as a new market and opportunities to cash in on single life are steadily coming into the market place. But again it emphasis a state of play we may not wish to be reminded of. When we set off outdoors on a weekend we will encounter many many couples along the way and we find ourselves wondering what it is about them that got them together when we are total treasures that no one appears to discover?

Therefore being single means being optimistic. It means keeping positive in the face of adversity. That adversity manifests itself through the thought in the back of our heads that whispers 'what if..'. What if we meet someone tomorrow, what if we spend out lives alone and never meet anyone again, what ever we never fall in love, what if no one actually likes us, what if we were meant to remain single. And it is this whispering that we fight to keep at bay daily by fighting to remain optimistic.

Optimism comes from the general knowledge that most of us will meet someone, we will find Mr. or Miss Right soon enough. But as we get older, we start to worry, even start to silently panic. If we are to meet our perfect match it has to happen before we are too old. We would like it to happen whilst we are still young enough. And as anyone in their 30's appreciates, as we get older , so time speeds up. In our twenties, time seemed endless. But as the wrinkles in the corner of our eyes demonstrates, one day we wake up and we are older, much older. And we are still single.

Being single is to an extent a triumph,. It means we have avoided the disappointment of dating disasters, wrong choices, and loneliness within a terrible relationship. It means we still have our own choices and our own sense of direction. We have the full sense of self determination and control over destiny. But at the same time it wears us down. It may be hard to admit, but the vast majority of us don't like being single. In fact we hate it.

We hate it because we don't get to share. We don't get to make happen the sharp image in our head of the perfect relationship we know is possible with the right partner. We have a never ending well of 'giving' that so far has been ignored. We want to give and we want to please. We wish to love and we want that opportunity. We are ready and willing but we are not allowed. Its almost like being in an isolation cell in prison. Being single heightens our sense of the need to give and it heightens the sense of frustration accordingly.

Being single isn't a cornfield full of casual sex, boozy nights, general lack of responsibility and carefree existence over the age of 25. Its a burden that many of us carry. Through failed relationships we have built up a mental list of the things we will never accept again in a relationship and at the same time it provokes and overpowering explanation of what we really do hope for. Being single isn't about choices, it is about circumstances. We know that had we been a certain place, had a certain life, then we probably wouldn't be single. But where we find ourselves today means that we are. Well we are for the time being.

By dating we keep our hopes alive. We realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And whilst the most recent suitor may not have been the one for us, at least we are heading in the right direction. And that's how many of us cope with being single. We do everything we can to keep our hopes alive. We convince ourselves that being single is by choice and that we are just waiting to meet the right one. And that's true, that's exactly what we are doing. But the 'what if' whispers away. Our body clocks may tick louder, our hair may thin, but we KNOW we will get there in the end. We hope.

Being single means living with a sense of frustration that little else can match. We don't have the answers as to why we are alone. We even ask 'why me?' This isn't how we have envisaged our lives, this isn't how we saw our future. So why has it happened? What went wrong. Where did we go wrong? Where are all the nice guys and girls. Maybe they have all been snapped up. Maybe there simply aren't any and we are fooling ourselves. Then we remind ourselves of the few examples of great friends in great relationships and this provides us with the temporary proof we need. And then we begin to question ourselves further. We may even question our own judgment, wondered if we have missed our best opportunity to be in a good relationship. Maybe we are simply too choosey? Maybe it really is all our fault. But of course it isn'

When vacations and national holidays and Christmas or Thanksgiving come along, then we are reminded heavily just what being single feels like. On Valentine's day we are also reminded that we are yet again this year solitary creatures. However this year will be different. We feel it. We have our sights set one on or two potentials and who knows where things may lead. Who knows, by Christmas we could be engaged.

Married people often think the grass is greener on the other side. People in bad relationships dream of the freedom of being single. I have been told many times that I don't know how lucky I am to be single. The next time someone says that to me, I will go over and stick my finger in their eye and remind myself indeed how lucky I am that I decided to do that..all by myself.

Dating can be as tricky a business as can trying to find a date. When we begin dating, we often forget to consider what we are looking for in others we would like to meet. We set off with a definite view of the perfect dating partner. The moment we are introduced to someone, or view some photos of profiles or personal ads online – we forget everything! Why is this? Because we are swayed by many factors, in other words, we are not as set in our ways as much as we like to think we are.

Beauty, of course, often holds sway. However much we like to say we are not, there are few of us who wouldn’t date someone attractive. It is in our blood and we would usually say yes to an attractive person. Beauty tends to rub off on those around it, so if we associate ourselves with what we consider are good looks we immediately feel good about ourselves also. Most of us are not models and therefore we tend not to meet those who are but we notice it in the things around us. If you can appreciate something beautiful, then you can also appreciate someone beautiful. To ignore it is a lie.

However, if we simply lived and dated by beauty alone we would be too shallow to succeed in any real sense. We would have 2 dimensional personalities and be uninteresting in any meaningful way. It is often leveled as a criticism in attractive people that they don’t have very strong personalities because they have traded on their looks for too long. Conversely, a conventionally unattractive person can often have a strong and interesting personality to make up for the lack of attractiveness in a physical sense. So it’s clear that as an isolating factor beauty (or more specifically, physical attraction) is to some extent important but it is not the only important thing when dating others.

We look for humor in a person because we want them to feel good by being with us and we want them to feel good about themselves in their decisions. We also want ourselves to feel good and to relax and have fun and a great time. Therefore when we date someone, humor is a must if we are going to ever reach a level of relaxation in the company of that person. Laughter and humor is about creating a mental connection and understanding about the world around us. It is a demonstration of a commonly accepted set of beliefs between us and it allows a demonstration of a level of understanding quickly not known in almost any other form.

When dating others, we look for eye contact upon meeting because it is the most direct sense of understanding and truth and honesty. We almost always look at each other’s eyes first when we meet as this is where we first find attraction. It is beyond me here to explain why that may be but I do like the expression that our eyes are the gateway to the soul. I tend to agree. The smallest change in the glint of our eye conveys so many emotions and it is thus that we first begin our instant relationship.

When dating others we look for common understanding and acceptance. We do not seek partners as judges but as part of our own emotional support system. We like to admire and to be admired, however subtly. In another parlance, we would say that we appreciate and like being appreciated. Either way, we enjoy the company of another because we make each other feel good about themselves. It’s an unspoken understanding. Where relationships begin to crack later is where the understanding and support is replaced by criticism due to internal frustrations of lack of support. Initially when we date, this understanding and acceptance is displayed through many different methods from conversation and laughter in agreement on a topic, to agreement in places to visit on dates and food to eat, drinks to consume, movies to go see etc. It’s all part of agreeing based on a common understanding, finding the common ground between us.

We look for honesty and truth when dating. It can be like one long test, especially when we are not new to the dating game and have had our fingers burned previously. We know that it is within everyone to embellish the truth and unfortunately part of the dating ritual is to talk ourselves up, so sell ourselves as worthy. When this happens we must be careful not to go too far and add things that are untrue. Later our burgeoning relationship could fall apart through such white lies. And yet there are too few of us who stick 100% to the truth alone. There will come a point when we all add in some substance to our conversations to help our image to our date and to be honest this can all be part of the fun. But the basis of honesty has to be maintained when dating otherwise it is a pointless exercise. We are looking to share our quality time with someone so let’s be truthful from the outset.

There is an argument that when we are dating we are seeking someone like ourselves, a reflection of what we already feel about ourselves and the world around us. I think that is a mistaken view. I think what this theory really means is that we want to love and be loved and to allow this to happen we hope to find someone who not only matches some set of important criteria that we set ourselves but also someone who sees the world as we do. Not exactly perhaps, but close enough that we can grow further both as individuals and as a couple.

Are we searching for Miss or Mr. Right or have we already met them before? Did your Mr. Right once exist in your former life? Were they childhood sweethearts?

First love isn’t a new topic but I realized that first love is an emotionally potent one. With this in mind I realized that first love must have a much greater effect on the way we handle our lives that we perhaps want to admit. Until we first fall in love we are in effect emotional virgins. True romance has yet to touch us. We assume we know a great deal about life already and we assume we feel the same way that everyone else does, but we do not. Only those who have been in love that first time know the world has far more to it than meets the eye. Like death of an adult or parent or someone we love we can never be prepared and first love for many of us is a happy experience tinged with lifelong sadness and oddly, an element of grief. Because unless we marry our childhood sweetheart, our very first Mr. Right and live happily ever after, most of us will go on from our first love to be single again and learn from the experience.

I am not speaking here of first dates, first kiss or first sex. I am speaking earnestly about one’s first true love, the person you first fall madly in love with and cannot live without. It could be a childhood sweetheart but it doesn't have to be. Childhood sweethearts have a huge influence though and mustn't be underestimated in the legacy they leave. However I accept here that child hood sweetheart is too specific. Personally speaking, I was always kind of jealous of those who had childhood sweethearts as that was how it was supposed to be.

First love is the first time we learn to deal with pangs of angst, stomach churning adoration, lust, love, anxiety, salty tears that know no end. It’s the first time you learn what a deep communication with another person out-with your immediate family can be like on both a spiritual and physical level. You cannot live without them, you feel alive like never before, you exist wholly for another human being. It is fantastic, it is unbelievable, it’s the best thing in the world and it becomes your life, she becomes your life, he becomes your life. And it ends. In an instant the best thing that ever happened to you …stops.

I may overplay this scenario and of course it doesn’t happen to everyone, but amazingly, most of us have had some kind of experience like this. If we haven’t then we will so be warned. I say this because this may just be the thing that governs who we are. For many of us, our first great love occurs sometime between 16 to 21 years of age when we are still young and fresh and optimistic and ready for life. In that moment we are most open to experience and we are also at our most vulnerable. In this moment we may love like we may never love again, at least for quite a while.

During that time of first true love we open up ourselves to everything that love can bring us, elation, defeat, passion, sincerity, communication and contact, all on levels we had never experienced before. Our minds store away every small detail as part of our vertical new learning in love and romance and we cannot get enough. But the issue is that it gets taken away. It may be we are making a wise decision, maybe it is we who decides too much too young. It may not be our choice and our eternally loved partner walks away leaving us with life long questions that may never be answered. But whatever happens and however the end of our first love occurs, it will and does leave a legacy whether we like it or not.

Okay I hear you ask, what legacy, or is my legacy the same as your legacy? Well no, we are all different. First love in many people often leaves us with lifelong happy memories that are tied in with other close friends, with college and school, with times and places and particularly summers. For others, first love is a series of memories of regret, bad decisions and choices from which they have learned and become stronger hopefully. For everyone who has grown older with the legacy of a first love, future dating decisions are often too closely related to that first true love experience.

The first legacy is often physical. We want to recapture the feelings of being with our first love, our childhood sweethearts, our Mr. Right or Miss Right, and the easiest way for our brains to do that is to find someone who looks like them. How often have you seen a friend partner with someone who looks like their first love. Amazingly when I thought about this, there were quite a few people I knew who were dating the image of their childhood sweethearts. So we find comfort in being with someone who resembles our first love. Next, we find that we are left with a legacy of the need to recreate a sense of love we have had time to heighten. What this really means is that if we have already experienced true love once, we want it again. Not a little, but the same or more even, just like the first time. Secretly, we crave it. Now this is a serious legacy from our past romance because what this really means is that we may not be satisfied by many relationships that come our way afterwards. Every time we date we want it to be like the first time, full of new experience, full of innocent love, with no preconditions. Yes we already now have preconditions because we have learned from our first love. We have set a base line for the presence of love.

Next this means that we will be tough in our romantic and dating decisions. Subconsciously we relate our first love to the perfect feeling of being in love and as such we crave it. We need and want love and that overwhelming wave of romance to be as powerful and magical as it was the first time and if it doesn’t come and come quickly, then the person we date will be penalized for this. We won’t want to date people who appear to be dissimilar to the person who showed us love, we avoid selecting people who don’t show such heightened potential in the early days of meeting. In other words, new dates are not reaching a perilously high love base line we have set and it may be that no one can. We want to date our childhood sweethearts a second time.
Next, the first love legacy means that we may punish those from who we don’t receive the same amazing love feelings by letting them go and continuing our search. In the end it can mean that we have set our sights so high that finding comparable love and happiness becomes difficult. Date after date we are looking for something we cannot find. I often here people say, “I don’t know what it is I am searching for but it’s inside me but I just can’t find it but I will know it when I see (feel) it”. In other words, they know what love feels like and want it again, but until it comes instantly they won’t accept, “I will not make do”, they say. And dating becomes difficult.
Of course what we forget is that our first love, our Mr. Right, is probably now some years older, a different person, maybe even looks different. That moment has gone now. It has been lost in time, and only lives on inside of us. I think it can be a good thing if we control it and let it be part of us but not take over. It governs some of the choices of who we are and who we wish to date, it guides and helps us in some ways because it clarifies what we know allows us to be happy. Even better is that it reminds us that true love can and does exist but that we are on a search to find it once again. To find true love in first love is an amazing thing and many say that to find that twice in a lifetime is impossible.

I disagree, I think as long as we accept that we must not try and recreate our first love, we are simply clear minded healthy people who know what we are about and are wise in knowing the experience of love, both good and bad. We should remember not to let this affect the potential of future even more powerful relationships than any that came before. Your Mr. Right, is somewhere waiting, just don't let him be the one in the past.