The continued search for signs of intelligent life through meeting, greeting and all the preliminary rituals of dating love on a Sunday afternoon. We are so action oriented that we think of love as something to do.

With Valentines day soon approaching, I thought some deep hearted comments about love, dating and the appropriate-and inappropriate behaviors of the human mating rituals were called for……..

FIRST- The Philosophy of LOVE:

“It is the method of merging in ultimate union through the heart. It is dualistic in the sense that one experiences love at first in relation to something or someone separate from oneself. The goal and outcome is non dualistic in the sense that the lover and the beloved merge as one.”

It is delicate work in that it is too easy to get too much reward (bliss) from the dualistic stage..that one cannot leave the separateness to proceed to the unitative stage. We are so action oriented that we think of love as something to do. But most people have sadly found that you cannot make love if love does not already exist.

Love has to spring spontaneously from within, and it is in no way amendable from any inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together, but love can be awakened within a person through love itself.

Love is essentially self-communicative. Those who do not have it catch it from those who do have it. True love is irresistable unconquerable. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everone it touches.

There are different vehicles of lover for beloved. The essence, the love is the same. What one is loving within the other is love itself. When we say we “fell in love”…we say that the person found the key to unlock the place of your love. When the experience is mutual you can say psychic chemistry allows both partners to fall in love or awaken to love.

Since love is a state of being that state to which we all want to return , we wish to possess love or we try to possess the key but we find that is impossible ….to possess the key is to loose it.

We get attached to the methods and fail to realize that it is the goals and not the method we crave. A relationship that starts out as one that awakens love can only remain a living vehicle for love to the extent that it is continually made new.

Play your role in the divine dance but know it is such and recognize its divinity. –

—————- OKAY.

Let. Me. Break. It. Down. For. You. The reality of today’s dating scene is not as flowery and romantic as the above verse presumes it to be. (This commentary is not gender biased, but rather derived from several interviews with women in the Boca Raton, Fl. area. Their self-reports corroborate a general lack of dignity in dating these days. It is agreed that one must be thick skinned in order to grin and bear the process and be able to roll with the punches that “dating” entails)

THE INTERVIEWS:

Susan:

“Please do not insult us in meeting for a Sunday afternoon bite to eat on a first “date” and fool yourself into believing that you have the right to be in our “personal space”….you know…the hand holding, playing with hair, touching waist, kissing…yuck…etc. etc. The audacity???!!!

“Where is the precedence for this seeming familiarity and sense of entitlement?” How presumptuous can men be? It seems quite so. These physical actions send a clear message to most women , that you don’t want to really know who they are….but are simply looking for a quick hook-up to ease your loneliness or satiate your pleasure quota for the moment.

Maria:

“Someone please explain to those of us women with half a brain…(c’mon this is not brain surgery) why guys think they can smooze you, kiss on you, invade your boundaries of respect…finish off their pork dumplings ..and send you off with a kiss or two and a swift adios. “Once we make it clear that we are not interested in going home with you an hour and a half into the date, they cool off and dismiss you and within 24 hours are on the the next “hook-up.”

Veronica:

“One of my friends claims that the men have a dating form of ADHD where they can’t even concentrate on you for more that 24 hours, and then there they are, right back on the dating sites again.”

Elysse:

“Please…keep your hands to yourself and GROW UP!!!!!! ” Any self respecting man that is sincere and wants to make a good impression on a woman, would or should have the social graces by this stage of the game…(c’mon!!) to know how to dance the ‘divine dance’…

Karla:

“I’m sorry that you think that hanging out with your boring selves was earth shaking for us. Although it is true that there is a ratio of 10 to 1 in favor of more women to men, and the fact that society has evolved or should I say sunk to new lows again with the expectations that women will simply sleep with men because the pompous guy “expects” it ….many of us women know who we are and will not fall for your unhealthy “pitch.”

Jessica:

Do you guys get it…..show us the respect that we deserve…and either ‘man up’ or don’t waste our time.

Dr. Arlene:

On a lighter note….a good male friend of mine requested that we as women, not let the “bad seed” representatives of our male population ruin it for the good guys out there. And…yes indeed there are still good guys around! One of my favorite quotes- “if you don’t stand for something-you’ll fall for anything” –

Onward my fellow goddesses…..your guy is out there….just don’t stop and linger too long among the epidemic of those hanging out in “Clueless Park.”