With all that's been going on lately I've felt the need to find some hard 'n fast lines as to how things seem to work in the dating realm. Here are two items that seem to stand out;

It seems much better that a Friendship should build up to Romance (Eros love) rather than beginning with an exploding Romance that settles down into Friendship. Not that beginning with Romance is doomed to failure, but it seems to invite many misunderstandings that not many new relationships are prepared to weather. There is a certain, long-term, sense of security in knowing that you are loved by your mate, not because you were able to achieve or overwhelm their decision to begin the relationship, but rather that they are there with you because they chose freely within themselves to love you aside from what you have or will do for them. Of course this is something which, by obvious definition, must occur outside of your ability to control. Since there "seems" to be more control in launching a campaign to "win over someone's heart", the Romance First option is easy to fall into. But in the long run I have become convinced that Romance is to be the Enhancement of a love relationship, not the Initiator of it.

Secondly, it seems there is a strange attraction to release and perpetuate a passion for a person who is greatly or completely out of reach rather than the more sound practice of building a long-standing passion for the one who presents an available, faithful, workable love. The lack of availability may be due to moral regards (person is already married or involved), geographical distance, unworkable temperament (obvious problems with drug or physical abuse of others) or any number of reasons which would ordinarily make such a person either unavailable or an unwise choice as a mate. But the attraction seems to be either in loving them as a "project" in order to make their life better (savior mentality) or in the security of knowing that one can play with fire knowing full well that if the person became available, they would have no qualms at all about leaving such a person high and dry.

On the other end of the spectrum I've seen the elements of desirability present (good morals, spiritually growing, kind, considerate, attractive, etc.) but because it can be fairly easily seen that such a relationship would have a high probability of working out well for both partners, the first partner assumes it to be either not enough of a challenge to instigate passion or assumes such a person can wait until later as a last resort. Personally I think these are signs of unhealthy perceptions as to what is supposed to instigate passion. Yet I am amazed at how many women I have met who will pass up on the "nice guy" in order to go to the ends of the earth for a man who is abusive, selfish or already married to someone else. It seems to me only a mature woman would find the man she's been waiting and praying for and then have the courage to not run away once she's found him. I have seen this too many times in relationships (both men and women making this mistake) to know it is not merely sour grapes on my end of things. All things considered, dating is an issue that requires much patience and honest courage in order to be done correctly.

©1999

Show All Articles By Henry Velez