Are they one and the same? Does attraction guarantee chemistry? Does chemistry guarantee attraction?
Has this ever happened to you? I can look at a guy and be instantly attracted to him. Then we hang out and there are no sparks.
We don’t click.
No chemistry.
No electricity.
On the other hand, I can meet a guy and not be instantly attracted to him (almost indifferent) and then hang out for more than a couple days and find there’s fireworks.
Isn’t it crazy…
how you can be in a crowded subway and not notice how everyone is pushed up against you…
but when the guy you like even so much as reaches over for popcorn and accidently brushes his arm against yours… that’s ALL you can think about? That’s what chemistry does to a girl.
So what if it wasn’t love at first sight! Who cares about instant attraction?! It doesn’t guarantee chemistry.
80% of married couples interviewed in a survey (over 1000 people) reported they did not feel an immediate attraction to each other when they first met.
You know when you start liking someone and you can feel your heart opening up…It’s equal parts anxiety and excitement…
Before, when you didn’t like anybody, life was not a roller coaster of emotions. You were just walking on the ground. But when you start liking someone and you don’t know how they feel, and you don’t know if they know how you feel…you stop walking on the ground and you’re either on cloud 9 or in limbo, that place between heaven and hell where you’re just waiting…
Yup, one minute you’re high on the chemical rush, the next you feel sick to your stomach. It’s terrific highs and extreme lows.
Even if you haven’t said anything… You feel exposed because your heart is way more invested than the evidence you see of his and you’re sure your cards are showing. And you wonder… how have I let someone… without them even knowing… have so much control over how I’m feeling? Their words (or lack of words) take on more significance than you’re willing to admit. When you like someone you give them power to either break your spirit or lift it up… I’m just not comfortable with anyone having that kind of power over me… I’ve never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve. It’s always safely tucked away, hiding, with a fortress around it and bodyguards the size of Chris Farley…
Cuz there’s that point when you feel yourself falling…and that feeling, that feeling of falling, not knowing if there’s someone waiting to catch you… it’s scary. I fear the “Almost lover” song. Of being in that position… Boyfriends, fiances and husbands aren’t the only ones capable of breaking your heart. Crushes can crush your heart as well.
Who says you can’t learn from the movies? This is from the movie After Sex found by my new friend Mariela. So much wisdom here!
Love is not negotiable.
Love is a guessing game,
and that’s the beauty of it.
There are no guarantees.
It’s like diving into a pool of water
without knowing if its shallow or deep
and sure [yeah] if its shallow you end up
hurt and paralyzed from the neck down,
but if its deep…
[you know] its a leap of faith…
its like throwing yourself out there without
any guarantees, and that’s what life’s about.
You know those carnival games,
you know how some of them are really hard to win
and those that are super easy and everyone wins
well… that’s the difference between love and sex Sex is the game where everyone wins a little prize
and no one goes home a loser
and Love is the game that’s really hard to win.
but if you do and you get to take home that
life size stuffed rhinoceros
and it feels a whole lot better than taking
home that little shitty plastic key chain.
I wish things were that simple. The simple giveaway answer is, No, do it for yourself if you know you need to in order to be fit and healthy. If you know you’re not comfortable, much less confident in your skin, then yes, do something about it. But don’t do it for a guy.
This is such a touchy subject for us females. When a man goes anywhere near it, they’d probably be better off if they just started digging their own grave. So I’m glad I’m a woman, and not a man, writing this very taboo subject. Still, I may have some opposition. It’s all good. Thank God for freedom of speech.
Now tell me, what’s wrong with doing it for a guy? I pose this question because I’m really trying to live my life in such a way where I ask myself, “What is the most loving thing I can do in this situation?” Instead of the automatic selfish question, “What do I want? How will this benefit me?”
And when it comes to weight and being fit, I know that the majority of men appreciate a good physique. I will never deny that men are visual creatures. If I didn’t care about what men thought, I’d probably do the selfish thing and not care so much. Lay around the house more. Give up a disciplined fitness regimen. Or as one friend once told me, “If men didn’t exist, we’d be a bunch of fat, happy, hairy women.” Laughable? Last time I checked I’ve never equated being fat or hairy with being happy. Then again, I’ve never lived in a world where men didn’t exist. (thank God!)
If you’re single, thank goodness men don’t think of only one type of body as beautiful. Still, the important thing is that you should only expect him to love what you love. So if you love your body, then great! He has the chance to love it too. And like a previous post I wrote, you can only expect what you’re able to offer. So if you’re overweight, unless you also want to be with a man who’s overweight, then you do have to change. If you don’t mind a guy who’s overweight or actually prefer it, you’re good to go, as long as you are confident about your body. I never promote striving for perfection. We’re human and we’re flawed. The key is that we want to offer the best of ourselves to the people we love because we hope they want to offer the best of themselves to us in return.
I’ve struggled with this idea that men care so much about how women look. I’ve struggled with it because I don’t want to just be appreciated for my body, because my brain is who I am. I am not just a face or a body to look at. But I’ve come to stop resenting men for being visual creatures. We all appreciate what’s beautiful, we kind of need it. Just notice how you feel when you’re around beauty offered by nature. Or when you see a stunning painting or a striking sunset. You’re a happier person for having encountered that beauty. The thing is, society tries to tell men what beautiful looks like, so I can’t resent men. I believe every woman possesses a kind of beauty that some man out there needs. And yes, we may want to be appreciated for what our minds have to offer and not just our bodies, but it’s the physical that gets noticed first. It’s what captures their attention enough to want to get to know who it is behind that face and that body. The meeting of eyes happens before the meeting of minds.
Here’s a thought for married people. ( being the traditionalist that I am in dating, this scenario would only apply to married folks) If we as women are first and foremost turned on by the emotional, and men are first and foremost turned on by the physical (visually speaking), what would it look like if we didn’t care about what turns each other on (or were unaware)?
Well, first men probably wouldn’t bother listening to us. or saying sweet things. or sharing their feelings. Or opening up. If they didn’t care about our needs (or were unaware), they’d probably speak to us a lot less and spend more time doing thier hobbies, hanging out with their friends and playing with their toys (car, tools, guns, videogames etc.) And yet, they’d probably still expect us to have sex with them, just because for them the visual really is enough to turn them on and they assumes it’s the same for us.
Now let’s turn the tables. The opposite is true if a woman stops caring about what turns on her husband or at least is unaware that his needs are different. She’ll put less attention on her appearance because she’s comfortable. She’ll put aside exercise by rationalizing that she’s just too busy these days. She’ll be there for him emotionally because that’s what she needs most from him. She thinks that must also be what he needs most from her too. Time passes and she’s more inhibited in the bedroom. Then when the point comes when she feels too uncomfortable in her body to keep the lights on during sex, she’ll still expect him to be turned on just because for her the emotional really is enough to turn her on and she assumes it’s the same for him.
You need to be heard, communicated with. Desired. He needs to desire you. He needs to see you naked. He needs for you to like him looking at you naked.
If he stops making an effort emotionally, you start thinking he doesn’t care about your needs. The same is true for him. If you stop making an effort physically, he starts thinking you don’t care about his needs.
Men will always be bombarded with images of scantily clad women in the media. With the Internet, porn is everywhere. We can help divert their eyes if we offer the best that we can offer of ourselves, and we offer it confidently and freely. Have you ever thought that you could help your husband in his battle for purity and loyalty towards you in this way? Isn’t that one way to put your love in action? Think about it. One thing with a woman providing sexual favors for money is that they’re always ready and willing and confident.
I guess the most important thing is that you have to at least be okay with what you look like naked, if not love it, and do everything you can naturally to get to that place. It’s a win win when you think about your own happiness and loving yourself and you also think about your partner’s happiness and his needs.
So whether you’re single or married, think about this point that Sunny Weston makes from the book The Perfect Fit. Who says you can’t learn from fiction?!
Do it or don’t do it. Decide what makes you happy. If being fat depresses you, change it. It’s up to you…But you can’t resent thin. It’s just a version of beauty that preoccupies us right now. From the cavemen on, there have been those who were deemed beautiful, and those who weren’t. The characteristics may have changed, but there will always be a beauty ideal. You can’t fight it, even if you don’t fit it. But you can’t let that jeopardize the life that you deserve… It’s not about being perfect: there will always be somebody prettier, or thinner, than I am. It’s about being the best that I can be. And it wasn’t the weight that I lost, but the effort that it took to lose it, that really earned back my confidence.
And for those gentlemen who are reading this, the role you play is to do your best to love us unconditionally. Your appreciation, your desire, your present belief that we’re beautiful even as we are in our current state– and all these things verbalized will do more than any nagging, any guilt trips or any plans to withdraw or make us feel jealous. Remember, like a flower, women bloom with care and attention and time. Here’s a quote from A Perfect Fit for you guys:
Maybe the reason some people turn to whiskey and some people to food is because they need something to numb the pain if they don’t feel loved, because they feel worthless… So love is the cushion that stops us from needing food and alcohol. Those things blur the edges, eases the pain.
Your love is that powerful. We think we’re trying to feed our bodies but it’s our souls that are starved. Your love feeds our souls.
Let’s lighten up and have fun dating! Even if nothing gets serious, we can still enjoy ourselves, right? Most men totally feel this way. One of the reasons women feel so much pressure when they date is because they immediately try to size up their date as a future spouse.
Okay. Guilty. I’ve noticed a lot of singles, including myself, tend to put too much pressure on getting married. We get too serious too fast in our heads. So, we may either find all sorts of flaws or we think they’re so amazing, we know our hearts are already somewhat attached. Either way, our minds race into the future. Like I said, I’m guilty of it too! I’ve noticed since I’m always in the future, I don’t enjoy the present moment quite as much. I’m noticing that this day by day, moment by moment living is really the way to go, even in our relationships with the opposite sex.
What if we went about getting to know people a different way, with a different intention? Experiment. What if went into every friendship/date/relationship without our minds racing off thinking about marriage? Meaning, we just go into the situation getting to know the person better. I really think that we’d all be better off! The worst thing that could happen is that the guy ends up just being our friend. And what’s wrong with that? Aren’t people worth getting to know just for the sake of bonding and sharing life together?
Women especially tend to ask “marriage-minded questions” all too soon and all to frequently. Or as one man said, “After two or three dates they always want to talk about settling down. I want to go out with someone who’s fun, not someone who is desperate to find the right genes for her baby.”
You don’t want to give this impression! Instead you want to send the message: I want to get to know you. Not because I have an aching desire to be married and to be someone’s wife, and you might be a possible candidate. You’re not just a potential spouse because I’m dying to fill a role in my life. What biological clock? What? Really? My friends are all married? I don’t care. I just want to get to know you.
Any conversation with these following subjects in the first couple of dates immediately signals that your primary intentions for making his acquaintance is to size him up to see if he fits the role of husband:
family’s medical history
intentions regarding marriage and children
career prospects
But you rationalize:
“But I don’t want to waste my time! I want to know what his intentions are. I want him to know what I want! I’m not getting any younger!”
Let me ask you, let me ask myself! Is it really a waste of time getting to know someone deeply? Isn’t caring deeply for other human beings and being cared for in return really what we all crave? Friendship is the stuff we all want. Add some electricity and sparks and you’ve got something amazing. Or as someone once said, “Love is friendship set on fire.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to dog marriage. Marriage can be a wonderful thing, (so I’ve heard) but now I’m really starting to see that it’s just a continuation of a deep friendship with someone, someone who you want by your side more than anybody else. Someone you have enough things in common with to build a life on and possibly share with another generation of human beings but also someone you share enough differences with to keep each other continually growing, discovering and learning. Marriage is just a public announcement of a commitment you already share. A deep friendship is the basis of that commitment. So why do we put so much emphasis on the public announcement and the new title? Isn’t the ongoing friendship what really matters?
Right now I’m single, but I can honestly tell you that I hardly ever feel lonely.(except after watching romantic comedies!) Is this because I don’t crave companionship or have a libido? Hell no! (to put it lightly) I just know that even if I don’t have a significant other, I have at least a handful of significant friends who I know care for me deeply and will be there for me through thick and thin. Marriage is this thing I want, but I don’t feel that I need to focus on it in my friendships and relationships with men because it’s an institution that’s pretty universally ingrained on the majority of people’s hearts to want and desire. I really think that the majority of people crave that intimacy that marriage provides. And if they don’t want that, I’m pretty sure you’ll find it out pretty early on in the game. People don’t usually hide what they want, especially guys. They’re pretty straight forward. And yes, we may not be getting any younger, but the older we get, the more guys are afraid that we’re just trying to get to know them because we feel the pressure from ourselves and others to get married. They don’t want to just be the guy to fill a role. If you do get married to them, they want to know it’s because you want to be with them, not just the idea of having a husband.
Somewhere along the way, you changed. You started thinking of time as something that was running out. You started focusing on the destination–marriage– and you stopped enjoying yourself along the way. -Nita Tucker
We can all take the pressure off of dating if we stop focusing so much on marriage as a destination and just focus on building deep relationships with others… and having fun!
…your friend. Overly simplistic? Heard it before? Maybe. Probably. Still. It’s a little harder than you think, actually. That’s if you start off dating without first being friends. You have to force yourself to put aside all those hormonal, romantic feelings you have toward this person, all that sexual energy, and simply ask yourself,
“If I wasn’t attracted to _________ would I even want to pursue a friendship with him/her?”
I’ve heard the same story many times. In the end, someone ends up saying something to the extent of, “After the blinders came off, after I saw past the great sex, I thought to myself, we’re so different, I don’t even like this person!”
So maybe marriage isn’t all about love. Wha–?! Hear me out. Maybe “like” lasts longer than the standard, all-consuming “love,” we all refer to. Take this example. I love all my relatives. Deeply. I would give my life for them. But, I don’t actually like some of them. Meaning, if they weren’t my family, I would probably never associate with them by choice. Ouch.
Come on! You know what I’m talking about! There’s always at least one relative you think is annoying, you don’t like their personality, you don’t like some character traits. Stuff like that.
My point is, you gotta marry someone you like. Or as one pretty wise guy once said, “You have to marry someone you like when they’re annoying you, when they’re vomiting in the bathroom, when they’re mad, when they’re sad.” A good friend of mine also said, “When looking for a husband, you have to pick someone who you really like and would be friends with anyways.”
Let me tell you, the best way to figure out if the person you are attracted to is someone you would be life long friends with is to hold off on the physical. Diving into the physical really has a way of blurring your vision and screwing with your logic. If the sex is good, you can rationalize a lot. Great sex can blind you, seriously. But not forever. If you really like someone and see the potential for it to go somewhere long term, remember, it’s not a sprint, it’s a long distance marathon to the finish line we call happily wedded bliss. If you marry this person, you have your whole lives to discover each other’s bodies. Now is the time to discover their mind. ‘Cuz really, isn’t that what our person really is? I think of my body as just this vessel that holds my mind; my mind is what really makes me, me. And although I want someone to appreciate and delight in what my physical body has to offer in terms of sight and touch, if they can hold off on that and first seek to value my mind, that is when “like” really has a chance to become “love.” Marriage is the meeting of minds.
“In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self”
First, let’s talk about Deanna. If you’re ever in a situation like her where you’re having to decide to be with one guy/girl out of many, (yeah, boohoo poor you) this is what you have to look for: (I’m paraphrasing)
“I had a different relationship with all the men, but there’s one thing I can say about Jesse. He’s the only man I can honestly say I don’t want to live without. He’s one of the best men I know.”
That’s definitely a good sign you’re choosing the right person!
Now for Jesse… Jesse proved that in the Bachelorette:
1. You can win a girl’s heart by being completely transparent and being yourself.
2. You can do this without making enemies with any of the other guys. (take note Jeremy from this season and Robyn from the last season of the Bachelor)
3. You can beat out the mysterious, hot guy she has great chemistry with (Graham) because in the end, a woman doesn’t want to be with a man who isn’t willing to put his heart on the line. She wants to know you’re sure you want to be with her.
4. You have to know that if you’re getting into this kind of situation, you have to expect that she’s going to be kissing and dating other men and just do your best to focus on getting to know each other instead of showing you’re jealous and insecure. (Graham)
5. It pays to build up the non-physical parts of a relationship before engaging in the physical. He said, “The physical part is the easy part. So if you can build the friendship first, that part will follow.”
6. On the same note, if you wait to kiss her, past the time where she wants the first kiss, you make her want it more! (but you gotta do it without her feeling rejected) (Graham)
7. You should show off what you’re good at when the opportunity poses itself. (but through action not words)Think of Jesse on the four-wheelers. Deanna couldn’t stop saying “Today, Jesse was hot!” Also, remember Jesse pushing her past her comfort zone and showing he’s the man when he took her on the slopes? It was also another reminder that a life with Jesse would also be an adventurous life.
8. You shouldn’t show off by talking though. Women know a lot of men are just talk. Notice the principle of “show don’t tell” when she came to visit him in his home. She noticed the charity he sponsored on the wall. He didn’t have to parade it. At this point, she was probably thinking, Wow, there’s always more amazing things to learn about this guy!
9. Honesty and Humility will get you far. Notice how in the end, Jason was sooo sure he was going to get engaged that day. Too overconfident. On the other hand, during the After the Final Rose Ceremony, Chris asks Jesse, “When did you know?” Jesse responds humbly, “When she said yes.” Jesse said he was dying on the day of the ceremony and was incredibly nervous. He just felt like he was going to get sent home.
10. You gotta have fun. Know that song, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?” There’s a reason girls love that song. Because it’s true. If you notice, most of Jesse and Deanna’s interactions were fun and relaxed. There were times when being serious was necessary but Jesse would still make her laugh and feel at ease. Contrast that with her relationship with Jeremy. Dead mother. Dead Father. Critical siblings. “I don’t just want you in my life, I need you in my life,” Jeremy says. That’s a lot of pressure! I don’t think Jesse ever gave her that kind of pressure.
He just showed her he was there for the right reasons.
He showed her he wanted to be with her.
He made her laugh.
He showed her a good time.
He showed her who he was.
Take Kate Beckinsale’s interview comment from the July 2006 edition of Redbook:
Women feel sexy from feeling appreciated and attractive and desired. Men feel sexy from…having sex. [laughs] If you can strike that balance where the man is having sex a whole bunch and the woman is feeling attractive and desired enough to have sex a whole bunch, then you’ve figured out the secret to a marriage that is totally alive.
Case in point. Men and Women are different.
If you read any dating advice or any books, if this truth isn’t evident in what you’re reading, put the book down. ASAP. Most of the conflict, communication problems and misunderstandings stem from this basic fact that we’re just wired differently. Embrace it. Accept it. Learn about the opposite sex. Then you’ll stop saying things like, ” Isn’t it obvious what I need from him? Do I have to spell it out?” or “Why does she always assume something’s wrong when I stay quiet?”
And here are my favorite books for understanding the opposite sex: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and Mars and Venus on a Date.
Unlike the days of Jane Austen when the person you ‘dated’ was usually the person you married, this generation has to deal with the modern invention of the guy/girl you’ve been romantically attached to in the past but for some reason, it didn’t work out. The Ex. In the process of creating this new Ex phenomenon, somebody did the breaking. Somebody else got broken. Sometimes it’s an amiable, mutual breakup, but I find that more often, usually it’s one person who wants out more than the other. And then, sometimes, because life isn’t always a linear path, we go back to these exes… but always with apprehension, regardless of what role we played in the breakup. With an ex, it’s never a clean slate.
Reasons behind the apprehension:
1. Obviously, if they broke up with you, had a change of heart and are back in your life, in the back of your mind (or the forefront) you’re thinking, Am I an idiot? Am I back for round two? There’s a saying that comes to mind, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Hmmm, does history repeat itself? Has this person really changed?
2. Now, maybe you were the heart breaker. Look, there’s a reason you left this person in the first place. So your apprehension comes from that past negative experience with this person. And also, maybe, just maybe if you realized you were completely in the wrong or it was just all a communication/Venusian vs. Martian misunderstanding, but you wanted out… maybe in the back of your mind you wonder if this person has ever or will ever forgive you or if you’re going to have to spend a lot of time trying to make things up to them. You’re hoping their not thinking, ooohh. payback time. nah. It’s all just in your head. right?
3. And lastly, those lucky rare individuals who had a mutual breakup. You’re not totally off the hook. Let’s say you both remember a glorious past. Maybe you were too young? Maybe parent’s disapproved? Maybe someone moved away and you both knew a long distance relationship is hard? If this person was amazing in the past, your apprehension comes from the fear that that beautiful memory might be replaced by a new memory that won’t match up to what you remember. And then that old memory that you cherish will be destroyed forever because even if it was a different time, I think our minds process the person’s most recent behavior. In other words, a person’s most recent character traits dominate the mind. I think of a document that you save on Word. The most recent changes replace the old work. So if the sweet, upbeat ex comes back around and time has made them bitter, cynical and downright unpleasant to be around, it’s hard to preserve that old positive picture.
It’s scary to find love with an ex. You can’t just pull an Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind on them and start from scratch. But hey, I’m not here to discourage. Just throwing out some thoughts for you to ponder on, as usual. It’s good to be aware. But the best advice I can give you is this: if you do consider getting back with an ex, dive in completely and treat it as if it were a new relationship, a clean slate. Forgiveness goes with forgetting. Think about these apprehensions and then toss them to the wind so you can go into it completely open, positive and responsive. Love is the part of life where you have to be all or nothing. You have to give your 100% or you’re just wasting both of your time. So let me say it again. It’s scary to find love with an ex… but it’s scary to find love with a stranger or a friend too. With an ex it’s fearing the known. With a stranger it’s fearing the unknown. With a friend it’s fearing the loss of friendship if it doesn’t work out. Love is scary no matter what. But it’s always worth it.
I loved Louise Kean’s book The Perfect Fit. It’s a must read for any girl who believes that a certain “ideal weight” or a certain size is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Parts of it were not my cup of tea, but nonetheless, I’m a true believer that fiction always has some gem of wisdom. In Sunny Weston’s case, she understood love and the relationship it plays with weight/food obsessions.
Love according to Sunny Weston…
I never guessed that this is how it would feel to fall in love. If my therapist had mumbled it I would have given him a patronizing smile, and looked for answers elsewhere. But it’s true, for me at least. Love isn’t the rush of infatuation. That’s how infatuation feels.
It isn’t the demanding urges of lust: that is just lust.
It isn’t fireworks, or nausea, or fainting, or any of the things that I thought it would be.
It is a feeling that gently creeps its way around your body, and whispers in your ears, and tickles your back between your shoulder blades, and traces its finger across your palms, gently whispering the whole time until you just can’t ignore it anymore: ‘You love him.’
It’s a feeling that doesn’t announce itself with trumpets or fanfare, it nudges your lips into a smile, and that smile refuses to fade for a whole minute. It isn’t all-consuming, not every second of every minute of every day. But it’s often, and it’s random, and it emerges like a plane trailing a banner across your mind, emblazoned with these words, ‘You love him.’
It’s the tiny conversation with him that fizzes and sparkles constantly in the back of your head, about everything you see, and the need to share it all with him, and hear what he thinks. You want him to see what you see.
So I learned that love is not explosions or drama. It idles up gently, and settles down beside you, and you may not ever realize until you glance around and see it sitting back, comfortable and relaxed, as if it had been there all along.
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