I did give him a chance Todd!-I realize the last entry might’ve been a bit harsh-but I’m trying not to sweep stuff aside like I’ve done before.

It’s refreshing to live apart, and date a bit long distance. He’s in Orlando and I’m down south of Vero. It’s an hour and a half away and he’s even tried making the trip by bike as he doesn’t have car. He’s open to mouthwash and is sweet about it. Z’s made plans with his dad and seems to be moving in the right direction-which is away from a bad situation.

He still makes me laugh, smile and I enjoy having him around. Z’s met my parents, loves them and they like him too. I’m a wee bit nervous about meeting his, but will cross that bridge when it happens.

This is definitely a worthwhile goal as I’m much happier this time around and it’s worth the wait. 11 months ago

Sent to me by a friend. Seems quite relevant to this goal :)

Immature people falling in love destroy each others’ freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.

A mature person does not fall in love, he or she rises in love. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have the integrity to stand alone.

A mature person has the integrity to stand alone. And when a mature person gives love, he or she gives without any strings attached to it. When two mature persons are in love, one of the great paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone. They are together so much that they are almost one. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There are no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. Only freedom and love.

-Osho Rajneesh 11 months ago

_heehee

http://xkcd.com/1042/ 13 months ago

Downsides, Z has horribly bad breath and no car. I haven’t broached the breath deal with him as he had warned me about it. Taking things slower due to distance and not rushing into anything. He’s really affectionate and nice, but finances could be an issue as he is very much living paycheck to paycheck.

Z’s got a job and isn’t homeless-step up in smarter category. He makes me laugh and smile even if he goes a bit over board. Don’t know if its a forever kind of guy, but he’s a good for right now one. 13 months ago

I know that when it starts getting crappy and making me feel horrid, I am now able to say “good-bye” much quicker than I used to. I realize it’ll be work, but there is a point when I have to save ME from THEM.

I waver between thinking that I’d like to date, even though it’s like navigating a mine field and loving my cats all the more because they love me for me.

I just finished the finale of The Vicar of Dibley and felt my heart melt. It’d be awesome to have someone who loves being with me, that I love being with and that we just enjoy stuff together without drama! That’s why I remain part of a dating site even, if at times, it feels hopeless. 14 months ago

For the past two years I’ve been much better at noticing red flags and not getting into bad relationships… which has meant having almost no relationships at all. I am still not finding myself meeting healthy people, which is reminding me that I must still have a ways to go to be healthier, myself. However, I’m happy to say I’m not settling for anything less than healthy and loving. 15 months ago

www.pof.com Plenty of fish .com site.

I joined it as one of my friends has enjoyed chatting with guys and I don’t want to isolate myself. I’ve had some interesting experiences in the past few weeks since I joined. Make sure to fill out the profile and take the quizzes, they are suprisingly good.

I have had lots of guys want to meet me me, and one tell me I was absolutely beautiful. Awwwwwwww. Heart melt time.

I’m enjoying it, and being completely honest. I don’t have the time for games and I think I’ve matured since I first started getting on the internet. 20 months ago

I just joined a new dating deal less than a week ago, and really trying to hold true to what I’d like rather than settling. I’m being honest with my profile and have gotten some interesting responses.

I’m not a hermit, it just gets complicated when you add a man to my life.

:) 20 months ago

After asking your fella a potentially sensitive question, when he responds sweetly, do not then spike your elbow into his eye as he moves to lie beside you and continue the conversation.

Sigh. After we made sure he wasn’t seriously injured, though swollen and in pain, I said, “See! This is why I don’t talk about relationships. Someone always gets hurt!”

Even with the accident, it was good to know I’m not the only one who thinks about the issue at hand and we ended the night with a great deal of tenderness and, apparently, on the same page. I’m glad I brought up the issue, as it was beginning to sit between us and I felt a bit like I was lying by not mentioning it. Knowing my sweetheart, he’ll go into analytical mode and I’ll hear more about it in a few weeks or months, as he chews through the options.

Sharing what’s in your heart with someone you can trust: SMART. Asking a difficult but important question even when you’re anxious that you’ll ask it badly: SMART. Planting your elbow into your loved one’s eye socket: DUMB! 21 months ago

Making sense of my last six weeks of practicing relationships. I’m going to call this guy ‘TMI Historian’.

1. Single and available to spend a lot of time with me, lives close by.
Freshly separated (four months out of a ten year marriage) so not quite single, but available to spend a lot of time with me. From this point on, when I say single that will mean really, truly single.

2. Artistic, creative, imaginative.
Very much so! A writer and a piano player. Very wonderful and agilely creative mind. Out of this world conversations. My favorite person so far in terms of planning fun dates, being romantic, being able to dream stuff up that really surprised me, he loved to dress up and go out. Very fun. I miss him.

3. Curious, self-educated, knowledgeable.
Yes, although really valued the ‘cerebral’ side of things. I love self-educated people that surprise you when you learn how well read they are, and he’s spent a great deal of time in ivory tower environments where it can be culturally self-replicating. I’m not a fan of educational materialism. But anyway, yes, he was really smart.

4. Handsome, strong, healthy.
Healthy, not really strong, not really handsome, but his confidence was a huge turn on for me, and I began to see him differently. I started to think he was totally adorkable, to be honest.

5. Sexually compatible with me.
Yes

6. Humorous, respectful towards me, gentle, accepts me, comfortable to be with, honest, good at mature conflict resolution.
_Humorous, sort of respectful to me but talked about past partners a lot(!)...like everytime we were together which made me feel weird, and when we talked about it, he refused to see it as anything other than my problem and finally broke up with me about it. He also interrupted me a lot and it made me feel like he felt like what he had to say was a lot more important, gentle mostly, very very generous, sarcastic a lot and in conflict defensive and blaming, didn’t really accept me in the end but thought I was the cats pajamas in the beginning, comfortable to be with 90 percent of the time, and honest (often to a TMI fault). Adding to this list ‘good at conflict resolution’, because his way of doing it was just to make it my fault and continue the behavior rather than amend it. He had a hard time finding fault with himself for anything and told me that he was ‘a very good person’. Even wrote me a note saying that ‘despite what happened, this is not a judgment on you as a person.’

7. Spiritually compatible with me, open to personal growth.
Yes…on a similar spiritual path, and also both from a Reformed Jewish background.

8. Musical
Yes! A piano player and we were both very musically compatible and had a great time sharing music with each other.

9. Likes my cat.
He seemed to.

10. Well-traveled or wants to travel. Curious and knowledgeable about the world.
Yes, and loved the US in the same way I do. And had traveled overseas a little.

What did I learn this time around?
1. Wait, wait, wait, wait. When things go too fast, I start to feel a bit crazy. I need to go really slow.
2. I have a thing about people who are in transitions…divorces, grieving, etc. I love them. I can’t get enough of them. Maybe I don’t really want the real thing? I also love long distance and maybe addictions? Damn!
3. Practice saying no to transitional situations. I feel a bit sad because possibly he and I could be friends and gotten to know each other that way. But I liked being his person. It was fun. But in the past, there are people I could’ve spared myself from that I would be happy to have. Practicing this could potentially be a great adventure.
4. Continue to trust myself. I am greatly improved at this these days!
5. I fall in love and feel attached easily, especially when the person is as wonderful as this one, so all the more reason to be careful and make sure there is possiblities of a sustainable relationship.
6. That I like Bill Evans and Hyde Park.
7. That I speak my feelings and am not afraid of ‘conflict’...conflict is really just conflicting truths and I am willing to hear others. I need to be with someone who won’t shy away from conflict and won’t be mean during a disagreement, won’t try to make me feel bad. I need to practice this as well, and work on engaging in conflict without attacking the other person. I sometimes do this without even realizing it, and am studying ways to express disagreement without making the other person wrong.
8. It’s only dating for the first trimester. If it’s considered a relationship, it’s only an illusion, an ‘imaginary relationship’ because each person is getting to know the other. Also, considering it a relationship puts a lot of pressure on its early development, very much like expecting a baby to know who to speak complete sentences in the first year of his existence.
9. I feel really burned out on people talking to me about their exes, and it feels crummy to me. I feel really exhausted by it. It’s too hard, it feels like working too hard. It makes me feel insecure and jealous, and uncomfortable with the other person. I want the beginning stages to be easy and fun.
10. I want to be in love, be in relationship, be married. I am willing to practice and explore, experiment.
11. A lot of these things I knew before, but… 23 months ago

After a wonderful talk with my dear friend Rat, I feel better and reassured that it’s a reasonable request to ask the person your dating to not go into explicit detail about his ex(es), some of whom he is still friends with and who I might meet (have met) in the future. I don’t really want to hear over and over again about the honeymoon in Paris with the ex every time we are together and I don’t need to know that a certain person he actually introduced me to may not have had special underwear in a certain moment or that another (well I won’t go into detail, because it’s kind of rude and disrespectful to the former lover)... I was, for a short time, in a situation where we were glowingly compatible except for this one thing; he loved to go on and on in explicit detail about his romantic past, and I communicated that I didn’t need to know. He continued to do it, and I continued to express distaste at knowing too much. He didn’t really get it, but it seemed really clear to me and I felt like I communicated it clearly to him. Eventually I felt like I was beating my head against a wall. Now we’re no longer dating. I don’t feel that sad about it as it was only for a few weeks, and a large part of it was a lot of fun. And I stood my ground on the parts I didn’t like and knew that the ground could either become more solid or the ground could give way. This is the unromantic part of forming a relationship, knowing what you want, asking for it, and maybe getting it and maybe not.

Lesson: Don’t linger with people who like to discuss intimate details of their romantic past or who repeatedly reminisce about times they spent with their former spouse. It’s rude! And who don’t get it when you communicate with them about it and try to make it about you. If it’s obvious to everyone else in the world except him, and he still looks at you like you have two heads, it’s a huge red flag.

And know that your feeling of disconcertedness is probably not jealousy, it’s simply disconcertedness and feeling off balance at poor manners and his seeming willingness to compromise a new relationship, and nothing more. 23 months ago

while Mr. Yes was making dinner, I asked if I could help and ended up chopping cabbage for the fish tacos. Somehow having my own place has made me more aware of all that he does for me when I’m at his place. I realized I think of going to his place as a break from my real life, even though it happens every other weekend. I want to shift that. Since he won’t be moving any time soon, I want all our time together to be very much part of our real lives, a big part.

I cleared out a drawer for him in my bathroom and always clean off the shoe racks that are a makeshift nightstand on his side of the bed when he’s staying over. I’ve got Splenda in the kitchen because he uses it in his coffee. He’s got meatless meatballs in his freezer. This is our life together, lived in two places. It doesn’t look like any other relationship I’ve had, but I like myself in this relationship more than I have in any other. 23 months ago