Man Love

I have a curiosity about people and their interaction with each other. While attending a Birthday party recently, my attention was drawn to a group of Jocks who were gathered together (as far away from the dance floor as they could get.) but it was their body stance and posturing, as well as their nervous laughter while talking that had caught my attention.

As it turned out, their conversation was on: ‘Bromance’ and how confusing the term was, one fellow said: “I love this guy (pointing to the man standing next to him), but hey, don’t get me wrong, we are straight and married.” I thought it was funny that he had to point out the obvious, but I guess with people calling themselves any number of sexual orientations and the list growing every day, that he felt he needed a qualifier.

In this current age of transformative roles and changing morality, the question of male love / bonding really becomes tricky.  As human beings, we naturally experience changes during the course of our lives here on planet Earth with some appearing to come out of left field.  These changes are challenging, even overwhelming at times.

Individuals find themselves unconsciously seeking to make sense of it.  I feel they are trying to articulate their Archetypal journey from sense to soul - The path that is hidden beneath the surface. In the case of this male bonding episode it was grist for my mill to ponder, I call it Tantalum or the practice of contemplation to clarify.

It may seem a bit odd to think that the answer to this form of relationship lay in the Ancient Archetypes. Let's bring examples of those mythic archetypes to the forefront of our mind to lend some clues and have a chance to release some taboos about our man friends in the flow of daily encounters.

Seldom is a Conscious focus used to understand what may be going on with us, life just seems to happen. Thus, some wander disoriented through life, others on a self-destructive path, in a world that is understood, and measured primarily by the external environment. Seldom by a choice of the Conscious Contemplation.

You hear all the time how we have lost sight of the personal connection be it with environment, each other, and with even our self.  We have a disconnect from the Archetypal Source. Sadly, too, we have come to understand “myth” as a lie rather than the symbolic and metaphoric gateway to a deeper truth.

For example, when the guy was talking about his love of his buddy, a piece of the mythic story or experience came to my mind. It was told to me years ago as a form of American Indian lore about manhood and love.

Love in Indian lore as per males, was described not as a concept revolved around a romantic getting your grove on sentimentality, but rather shown as adherence to service and duty.

Every boy, from the beginning of his training, was an embryo public servant. He put into daily practice lessons that reflected public service, so in this way, it would become part of him. His expectation for his service was not salary, nor prizes to work for. He took his tribute in the recognition of the community’s betterment and the consciousness of unselfish service.

The finest love a man could develop then was with his fellow men in unselfish service; these friendships were thought to be - the severest test of character.

You'd think it would have been loyalty to family and clan, or man and woman. The love between man and woman founded on the mating instinct and is often times not free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend, and to be a true friend under any and all trials, was considered the mark of a man! The highest type of friendship was the relation of ‘brother-friend’ or ‘life-and-death friend.’ This bond between man and man was usually formed in early youth, and could only be broken by death. It is the essence of camaraderie and fraternal love, it was considered beyond the thought of pleasure or gain, and whose bases is on support and inspiration. Each is vowed to die for the other if need be, and nothing is denied the brother-friend, but neither is anything required beyond their bond.

Their Courage was predicated on the ability to forget oneself in the pursuit of duty and the desire to serve and protect others. Bravery was a high moral virtue, yet it did not consist so much in the form of aggressive self-assertion, but in the development of conscious self-control.  The effect of the vigorous physical training young men participated in, was thought to be a way sports and games could serve as a funnel for their sexual energy, so that they might maintain a courageous self-mastery in their lives. A boy was taught by the men in his tribe how to use this skill in hunting, fishing, and the warrior defense of their agrarian way of life. Also to understand the tribe’s code of service and to learn to be led by Spirit.

Men’s groups known as fraternal organizations have existed as far back as ancient Greece and Rome. In the 1950-60’s there were many different fraternal groups in the United States, and I would guess a good 30 to 40% of adult males belonged to one or another of these kinds of organizations.  Many with animal sounding names such as Lions, Moose, Goose, Eagles, Owls, Orioles - or with names like - Odd Fellows, Knights of..., Veterans of…, Freemasons, Rotary, to name only a few of the vast array.

Men associated with these organizations with the intent to bring out the best in themselves through companionship and brotherhood; these environments were dedicated to the intellectual, physical, and social development of its members, and in some way, somehow to be of service to their community.

So I entertain, in this current age of contemporary coded language – that entails words like - Bro, Bromance, Dudes, Posse, and Wing-men -  that the context of these 21st Century words, have a deeper and more Universal Reality that is the same in all cultures, and all times, which is the Mystery that binds all lives, which is Love.

These are ancient archetypal rooted practices are trans-formative in a man experiences. It is the “encounter” experienced as a larger focused context of Purpose. That brings clarity to relationships and a larger sense of Love.

“Amazing things begin to happen when we do what we can where we are. Albert Schweitzer, the French Nobel Peace Prize recipient of 1953, expressed it this way: “I am certain of one thing. The only ones among us who will ever be truly happy are those of us who have sought and found a way to serve."

The greatest shift in most of our lives will take place when we decide to make ourselves available to something greater than our-self. The moment that the internal dialogue moves from the question “What’s in it for me?” to the question of “How can I be of service?” will be the movement in the direction of discovering our unique relationships with others.

Otherwise there is that uncomfortable veil feeling, as if something is missed.  As if the Universe has kept knowledge hidden from you. Look closer then at what your relationships are - to the Men in your lives, to Service, and what you say you Love. To be more present, be more patient, and to stay on purpose that delivers you to the possibility of a life-lived-in-depth, the possibility of authentic living. By keeping it real, the veil is lifted. 

From Lust to Sexuality

It was a bit surprising when a twenty-something ‘y' generation young man approached me and was asking my advice on getting laid. Let’s call him Ted. I had known Ted for a few years now and would have thought that he would looked for this kind of advice from among his peer group, maybe by starting the conversation with: “Yo, when was the last time you got laid?"

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All jokes aside, I looked at him and I could tell he was serious. Concerned that Ted felt he may be a real looser, my thoughts turn to what could have brought him to this point? Could it be he was just not informed? Then again, could it be that Ted had discovered feelings of sexual fluidity within himself?  Was he asking because he was going from asexuality to full-on sexual expression? Or was he interested in one of the other alphabet letters of sexuality that he might want to try? Whatever it was, I felt it best not to ask but to keep to his question.

I had to think about my years of sexual activity and perhaps share realizations I’d come to with him, such as - “The more I think I know, the less I really know about this ever changing activity.” That being said, I decided to stay with his scenario and try and flush out some of the gaps in his thinking or lessen the possibility for rejection in his encounters.

So I asked Ted what he was really looking to gain from his sexual exploits.

1. Was he looking to become an orgasmic human vibrator, looking for any Human intake orifice for solo or participatory pleasure be it after drunk dialing or being bored with porn or Netflix or just because they like to do it.

2. Being a -FWB (friend with benefits) to a person that wants no strings but who wants to enjoy his company.

3. Building a causal relationship of sex that moves beyond friends to lovers.

4. Looking for a committed relationship or life partner.

5. He was tired of masturbating alone.

I suggested that once Ted decided what he was after from his hook-ups he would then consider what the other person desired or wanted from the encounter, which may mean doing things he hadn’t considered doing to get the payout he wanted. Also, to keep in mind that he or the other person could always change their mind as to how often and long this would last. Lastly the importance of keeping a friendly dialogue going with yourself and the partner to have no ugly surprises.

Ted threw out some lame-ass goal from off the top of his head, for immediate gratification that he could see in his mind’s eye. I did suggest spending some time with himself alone considering his choice and his options in regards to repeating the act, his future sense of fulfillment, and gaining happiness.

Ted being a science geek, I reminded him, too, of a principle of quantum physics, which is that our thoughts determine reality. Early in the 1900s they proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt with an experiment called the double slit experiment. They found that the determining factor of the behavior of energy (‘particles’) at the quantum level is the awareness of the observer. The consciousness of the observer in this query was Ted.

Our reality, I assured him, does not exist in a place outside of us, but rather within. It infuses all matter and energy, connecting every person, everything from a ray of light to a bit of cosmic dust. I think it is absolutely clear that we must start to consider ourselves as more than a physical body and more like the fusion of our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and intentions, which I call the human sensuous energy field.

Sorry, I strayed. I asked Ted to consider his chances for success in sustaining having good sex. He pressed me further. I suggested that he consider the importance in the difference between the fantasy about his performance during sex, that which we create in our imagination (which, no matter how you look at it, is going to be far better than the performances that we can actually give, or worse, expect a partner to perform).

Anybody that has had regular sex can attest that the best sex they have had has always been conjured up in their head either alone or with a partner, rather than the actuality of their technique alone. In sex's defense I do have to say, that the worse sex you can have is better than no sex, in my option.

Ted came around, and he agreed that the best sex for most people is with someone with whom they have a sense of shared trust and perhaps an unacknowledged attraction. They’ve probably met at work or a party or through friends. They’ve seen each other at the same events, or gym or favorite sports venue, or their favorite bar. After a while some kind of affinity with this person is created, and you can figure they fit into some wider category of friends. Sex happens as a combustion of thought. Someone having met and interacted socially could start to wonder, what it would be like to be the person to get it on with Ted?

I prodded Ted into telling me what he thought his next step should be, which turn out to be his letting go of his imagined expectation and inadequacies (about looks, penis size and performance) for something tangible. That next step, or tangibility, was for him to voice an intention to the other person to actually go out together. Ah yes I said, but consider that you are not asking them out not for sex, but for fun.

To enjoy each other’s company. To get to know each other’s moods. As humans we learn in the exploration of play; having fun is a way of adding to our knowledge. In this case adding to the knowledge Ted would gain about this other person without the messy investment of feelings or getting hurt or rejection. Allowing Ted a safety zone for playful interaction where he could, if he liked, strut and flirt and observe the reactions of his intended, giving Ted a gauge of if or when the time is right to make his move towards the bedroom and, if he had chosen the right person for this situation would they go for it too? I suggested another benefit is that he could develop a friendship along the way with this other person even if either or both of them went on to other relationships.

He protested and said this was not about finding his dream partner. This was about getting laid.

I could sense in his conversation that he felt I had strayed from goal. Like many men he craves intimacy but fears rejection, getting hurt, clinging vines, or strings. To get him back on track I suggested that for men looking for free, no-strings-attached sex, sex for the sport of it, that he might want to try one of those hook-up sex sites. Ted looked shocked, for I had removed sex from its prescribed context. He protested that he needed to know something about the other person first.

I said ‘I have your attention again, good. Let me put it in your terms – You want to get laid, and to hit it more than one time, and especially if it is good.’ For this to happen, it is going to require both your heads to be working. The need to be conscious and to pay attention for the point of all of this is to ensure that you have a relatively frequent booty call. So if you actually want a relatively frequent booty call, and you want to be the person that is called, you need to put some effort into it, both in and out of the bed. It is about more than arousal, or the discharge of relief, Ted; it is realizing you can be the one they call for mutual orgasm rather than your singular masturbation.

It has to begin with a person you like and have respect for. This is at the start, during and after the experience. If you leave someone feeling shitty in any way, the chances of that next phone call coming is greatly reduced. Remember that person is the one you enjoy and can joke around with. The situation after sex has changed, but you may now have a deeper insight into your Being, a fuller understanding of your facets and capabilities.

Be clear about your arrangement, what is it, and what it is not: a hook-up, a movement within a relationship, a committed relationship. Whatever it is, be clear through real communication that you are on track. Awareness and communication increases good sex frequency for the both of you, without entering into territories that can ruin the friendship. Work to ensure the essence of your friendship stays the same, with increased incremental bits of change or fun. Don’t call or text more. Don’t call or text less. Don’t read into or assume you know the other person’s mind without communication and checking. This will prevent you calling yourself just a hook-up, or a boyfriend, or a lover or whatever prematurely.  If you find yourself doing that, the problem is you, and you will likely find you don’t have the chops to pull this kind of thing off. Just be yourself. Your intended has already known that guy (you) for a while now, and will like that guy (you) just the right amount, so don’t mess with a good thing.

Ted, I say, there is no intercourse without the fusion of Love in some kind of shape or expression. It will be different with each person and, Ted, your sexual orientation (what you think) goes further in determining the quality of satisfaction in those sexual activities than technique ever can. The mind’s orientation can resist the fact that we all have a choice between having the life we want or creating the reasons why we can’t have that life.

Consciously or not, Ted, people think about hopes and dreams for themselves in terms that go beyond the hook-ups. The true orgasm is the combustible fusion of our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and intentions - that sensuous human energy field perpetually informing the quantum reality within us and around us at each moment of our existence. It is not sex fully engaged without the igniting sensuous fusion of Love, and even better still if found in its highest form called Agape.

After our conversation, Ted left. In watching him walk away his head was held higher, his steps more assured. Ted realized that speaking to me was not to discourage his desire for sex, but to make it better by enlarging his concept of it and perhaps himself.

The fact that society is starting to have more open discussions about sex is good. The scope and depth of sexual desire isn’t something that can be done in a thousand or so words. But I hope it will be enough to have people engaging in enlarging the concept, firing up the male and female principles within all of us to rethink the fundamental level of reality and the restructuring of our beliefs and expectations about Love and sexual release.

Bringing it down to basics, we are all some form of energy field, and there is infinite potential in that energy. It is entirely up to us as to what we choose to manifest out of that field in our bodies and lives.

Whatever we do let’s make it good sex.

February 29, 2016 - Leap Year

Hey guys,

Just think about this (especially if you are single): Imagine a day where you could get cards, flowers, condoms, or be asked out for your favorite meal or drink, and even maybe get a whole lot more. Where do I sign up, you ask? Well it’s on the books, 29th of February is the Day, and if you are one of the lucky chosen ones you just might want to be ready. So dress up, smell nice, and wear that big smile. It could be your lucky day.

Hey, you say, February 29 does not come around that often; why that day?  Well, it might be by design. When I was going to Middle and High School this event was sometimes moved to November; the reason will be clear in a moment. February 29 - I remember my parents laughing about the implications of that day, calling it the Jump the Broom Day or It’s Going To Be A Shotgun Proposal Day. In my Junior and Senior High years we celebrated it as part of Sadie Hawkins week, culminating in the Sadie Hawkins Day Dance to celebrate the end of the event. Yet the roots of Leap Year are steeped in history and lore, and its significance has morphed and changed over the decades. The Leap Year event seem veiled in legend and myth. The tales that surround this event are purported to come from 5th Century Ireland when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait a long time before a man would propose. St. Patrick allegedly said the females could propose on this one day in February during the Leap year. Now this murky story is completely contradicted by the equally murky story of Queen Margaret of Scotland instituting a law fining men who said no to a woman who proposed to them on Leap Day. The substitute month of November, if there is no February 29, is an American adaptation.

The first real documentation of a Leap Year marriage practice dates back to 1288, when Scotland supposedly passed a law that allowed women to propose marriage to the man of their choice in that year. I find it interesting that the tradition didn’t catch on as a practice until the 18th century and really didn’t do much until early 20th century in America.

Which brings me back to the 20th century. We find the American version of this folk event originating off the pages of a comic strip, out of the mind of Al Capp, in the Li'l Abner hillbilly comic strip that ran from 1934–1978. To think I can find a small portion of my life originating from a comic strip! My real-world High School Sadie Hawkins Day and week, when girls sent boys notes and finally asked the boys out to the dance, was all due to Capp's comic strip catching the imagination of high school and college kids across the nation. But what is more telling of changes in American culture is not the Sadie Hawkins dance as much as the story itself.

In the story of Li'l Abner, Sadie Hawkins was the daughter of one of Dogpatch's earliest settlers, Hekzebiah Hawkins. The "homeliest gal in all them hills," she grew frantic waiting for suitors to come a-courtin'. When she reached the age of 35, still a spinster, her father was even more frantic - about Sadie living at home for the rest of her life. In desperation, he called together all the unmarried men of Dogpatch and declared it "Sadie Hawkins Day." A foot race was decreed, with Sadie in hot pursuit of the town's eligible bachelors. She specifically had her eye on a boy who was already in a courtship with a farmer's cute daughter, Theresa. She was the daughter of the area's largest potato farmer, Bill Richmand and, unlike Sadie, had a lot of courtship offers. Stud-muffin Adam Olis was her target, and because the engagement of Miss Theresa and Adam wasn't official he was included in the race. With matrimony as the consequence of losing the foot race, the men of the town were running for their freedom. Turned out Adam Olis was in 4th place out of 10th, leaving John Jonston Sadie's catch of the day. The town spinsters decided that this was such a good idea they made Sadie Hawkins Day a mandatory yearly event, much to the chagrin of Dogpatch bachelors. In the satirical spirit that drove the strip, many sequences revolved around the dreaded Sadie Hawkins Day race. If a woman caught a bachelor and dragged him, kicking and screaming, across the finish line before sundown by law he had to marry her.

By the early 1940s, the comic strip had swept the nation and acquired a life of its own. Outside the pages of the comic strip, the real implications of Sadie Hawkins Day were being explored: issues of equality or, at least, the grappling to understand the feelings and pressures of the other gender through role-reversal. Girls had to take the bold initiative of inviting the boy of their choice out on a date and the boys could only wait and hope to be picked by the girl of his dreams - something almost unheard of before 1937.

In the early 20th century it was common knowledge that women could propose marriage to men during Leap years. Postcards from the 1920s reveal some and negative attitudes about women who proposed to men and of the men who were proposed to.

Dr. Katherine Parkin, a historian at Monmouth University, in her research that entails Twentieth-Century Leap Year Marriage Proposals (published in the Journal of Family History), had found a quantity of cartoonish postcards depicting proposing women as ugly harridans, as fat, unattractive, and domineering - sometimes even violent - and the men they proposed to as scrawny, weak, and emasculated. For example, one of the postcards shows a tiny man squeaking “I surrender” as two gargantuan women, brandishing a total of four deadly weapons, pin him against the wall.

The postcard craze faded by late 1910s, but the misconception of a woman who could propose to man during Leap year lasted until the late 1960s. Fast forward to today and we find that those once strict gender roles have softened and sexual mores loosened; the notion of a proposing woman began to seem less patently ridiculous. And today in America we find ourselves in an era when the likes of both Britney Spears and Halle Berry have proposed marriage to men, showing a marked movement away from the past stereotype that proposing women look like ogres and that their men are weak and spineless.

So, on February 29 be available; be ready for the race, to run that gauntlet, knowing when to hold out, or speed up, or slow down until your version of Britney Spears or Halle Berry beats out all the others and you let her catch you. In America, the egalitarian nature of society now moving towards gender equality brings the knowledge that there are American women of today, women who are bright, attractive and who know who they are and what they want, who will no longer wait up for that ostensibly romantic ritual of the male proposal. As men we need to know that the partner that we want is there and that we won’t have to guess at what we can do to provide for her. Since many a couple does discuss marriage in advance, the progressive women may not wait for her boyfriend to get down on one knee and, in turn, many progressive men feel their right to negotiate a claim for a lasting union before the I dos.

We as a society may be past the point of assuming that man accepts a marriage proposal only at gunpoint, as one postcard from 1908 would have suggested. We’ve seen that Leap Year has been the traditional time that women could express their love passion and drive to be yoked to a man. We will see as we move forward towards equality of the sexes that if a woman chooses to propose to her male lover, she will have an option of not one day in an odd set of years but any of the 365 days of a year to do so, and society will not bat an eye.

Men, until that day drum up some ways to have February 29,2016 - this Leap Year - be a day of unimagined possibilities.

February 29, 2016 - Leap Year

Hey guys, just think about this (especially if you are single): Imagine a day where you could get cards, flowers, condoms, or be asked out for your favorite meal or drink, and even maybe get a whole lot more. Where do I sign up, you ask? Well it’s on the books, 29th of February is the Day, and if you are one of the lucky chosen ones you just might want to be ready. So dress up, smell nice, and wear that big smile. It could be your lucky day.

Hey, you say, February 29 does not come around that often; why that day?  Well, it might be by design. When I was going to Middle and High School this event was sometimes moved to November; the reason will be clear in a moment. February 29 - I remember my parents laughing about the implications of that day, calling it the Jump the Broom Day or It’s Going To Be A Shotgun Proposal Day. In my Junior and Senior High years we celebrated it as part of Sadie Hawkins week, culminating in the Sadie Hawkins Day Dance to celebrate the end of the event. Yet the roots of Leap Year are steeped in history and lore, and its significance has morphed and changed over the decades. The Leap Year event seem veiled in legend and myth. The tales that surround this event are purported to come from 5th Century Ireland when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait a long time before a man would propose. St. Patrick allegedly said the females could propose on this one day in February during the Leap year. Now this murky story is completely contradicted by the equally murky story of Queen Margaret of Scotland instituting a law fining men who said no to a woman who proposed to them on Leap Day. The substitute month of November, if there is no February 29, is an American adaptation.

The first real documentation of a Leap Year marriage practice dates back to 1288, when Scotland supposedly passed a law that allowed women to propose marriage to the man of their choice in that year. I find it interesting that the tradition didn’t catch on as a practice until the 18th century and really didn’t do much until early 20th century in America.

Which brings me back to the 20th century. We find the American version of this folk event originating off the pages of a comic strip, out of the mind of Al Capp, in the Li'l Abner hillbilly comic strip that ran from 1934–1978. To think I can find a small portion of my life originating from a comic strip! My real-world High School Sadie Hawkins Day and week, when girls sent boys notes and finally asked the boys out to the dance, was all due to Capp's comic strip catching the imagination of high school and college kids across the nation. But what is more telling of changes in American culture is not the Sadie Hawkins dance as much as the story itself.

In the story of Li'l Abner, Sadie Hawkins was the daughter of one of Dogpatch's earliest settlers, Hekzebiah Hawkins. The "homeliest gal in all them hills," she grew frantic waiting for suitors to come a-courtin'. When she reached the age of 35, still a spinster, her father was even more frantic - about Sadie living at home for the rest of her life. In desperation, he called together all the unmarried men of Dogpatch and declared it "Sadie Hawkins Day." A foot race was decreed, with Sadie in hot pursuit of the town's eligible bachelors. She specifically had her eye on a boy who was already in a courtship with a farmer's cute daughter, Theresa. She was the daughter of the area's largest potato farmer, Bill Richmand and, unlike Sadie, had a lot of courtship offers. Stud-muffin Adam Olis was her target, and because the engagement of Miss Theresa and Adam wasn't official he was included in the race. With matrimony as the consequence of losing the foot race, the men of the town were running for their freedom. Turned out Adam Olis was in 4th place out of 10th, leaving John Jonston Sadie's catch of the day. The town spinsters decided that this was such a good idea they made Sadie Hawkins Day a mandatory yearly event, much to the chagrin of Dogpatch bachelors. In the satirical spirit that drove the strip, many sequences revolved around the dreaded Sadie Hawkins Day race. If a woman caught a bachelor and dragged him, kicking and screaming, across the finish line before sundown by law he had to marry her.

By the early 1940s, the comic strip had swept the nation and acquired a life of its own. Outside the pages of the comic strip, the real implications of Sadie Hawkins Day were being explored: issues of equality or, at least, the grappling to understand the feelings and pressures of the other gender through role-reversal. Girls had to take the bold initiative of inviting the boy of their choice out on a date and the boys could only wait and hope to be picked by the girl of his dreams - something almost unheard of before 1937.

In the early 20th century it was common knowledge that women could propose marriage to men during Leap years. Postcards from the 1920s reveal some and negative attitudes about women who proposed to men and of the men who were proposed to.

Dr. Katherine Parkin, a historian at Monmouth University, in her research that entails Twentieth-Century Leap Year Marriage Proposals (published in the Journal of Family History), had found a quantity of cartoonish postcards depicting proposing women as ugly harridans, as fat, unattractive, and domineering - sometimes even violent - and the men they proposed to as scrawny, weak, and emasculated. For example, one of the postcards shows a tiny man squeaking “I surrender” as two gargantuan women, brandishing a total of four deadly weapons, pin him against the wall.

The postcard craze faded by late 1910s, but the misconception of a woman who could propose to man during Leap year lasted until the late 1960s. Fast forward to today and we find that those once strict gender roles have softened and sexual mores loosened; the notion of a proposing woman began to seem less patently ridiculous. And today in America we find ourselves in an era when the likes of both Britney Spears and Halle Berry have proposed marriage to men, showing a marked movement away from the past stereotype that proposing women look like ogres and that their men are weak and spineless.

So, on February 29 be available; be ready for the race, to run that gauntlet, knowing when to hold out, or speed up, or slow down until your version of Britney Spears or Halle Berry beats out all the others and you let her catch you. In America, the egalitarian nature of society now moving towards gender equality brings the knowledge that there are American women of today, women who are bright, attractive and who know who they are and what they want, who will no longer wait up for that ostensibly romantic ritual of the male proposal. As men we need to know that the partner that we want is there and that we won’t have to guess at what we can do to provide for her. Since many a couple does discuss marriage in advance, the progressive women may not wait for her boyfriend to get down on one knee and, in turn, many progressive men feel their right to negotiate a claim for a lasting union before the I dos.

We as a society may be past the point of assuming that man accepts a marriage proposal only at gunpoint, as one postcard from 1908 would have suggested. We’ve seen that Leap Year has been the traditional time that women could express their love passion and drive to be yoked to a man. We will see as we move forward towards equality of the sexes that if a woman chooses to propose to her male lover, she will have an option of not one day in an odd set of years but any of the 365 days of a year to do so, and society will not bat an eye.

Men, until that day drum up some ways to have February 29,2016 - this Leap Year - be a day of unimagined possibilities.

Love vs. Getting Somebody

The New Year has begun. For some, that new year’s resolution is to find Somebody. St Valentine’s Day, February 14, seems to be the kick-off day for couples of all types to express their passion, deepest feelings, and love for each other or at least their Lust. But for others, that set of folks, who are single or almost single, they may decide they need a Somebody and the Hunt is on.

When I was a young child in school, we celebrated Valentine’s Day by making cut-out red hearts using poster board and colored tissue paper for cards. We would share our Valentine cards with our friends in the class room, but we all hoped secretly to be special by getting the most cards from everybody (as if the number of cards determined how loved one was), or by getting special ones from our closest buddies.

Valentine’s Day is a poignant reminder of how far we’ve come today, far removed from that grade school notion of Valentine’s Day. Yet, as a culture at this time of year, we find our heart vulnerable, hoping for that special “other” someone. We want somebody else to recognize us and make us feel whole. Thus for some, the search is on - on the web and in the clubs - for that one special Valentine, that one person that will make their heart race and put a wide smile on their face. But does it ensure love?

I recently found out in idle party conversation that, for online dating companies, this is the most successful time of the year, with growth rates that move upwards to a peak of 60 percent in new clients (January to March of each year). For myself as a Mentor and Life Coach, I find people put themselves through a lot of stress during this time of year, trying to make something happen and / or to get Somebody. I guess it is good that they come to me and want to talk out some of their thinking before going forward. Some folks seem to stumble over performance issues, or being intimidated by feelings of being out of their league, or the need to find somebody in an arousal state to tell them they have sex appeal or that they are worth something. What’s worse is not having a sense of humor about it. There seems to be confusion in people’s mind about the difference between Love vs. Sex. In the back of my mind comes the phase “Sex is really the only interesting thing that some boring people do." And then they want to take the humor out of the equation. Really ???

Did You Know?

Valentine’s day is a pagan festival. February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. You can do your own research or trust me on this one. According to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

Of course, Americans tone it down a lot, with just the exchanging of hand-made valentines in the 1700s (not as much fun as the Roman lotto). Then came Esther A. Howland in the 1840s, who introduced and sold the first mass-produced Valentine cards in America. Fast forward to today and, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second most popular card-sending holiday after Christmas.

Yeah, I know the V.D. card isn’t doing it for you. So let’s put aside everything you think you know about this Love-in-bloom day and approach it differently. For some, you are all involved with the motions of what you should be doing to find and express Love, and yet didn’t stop to think what does Love and relationship really mean to you. And then the billion-dollar question, “Can I sustain and have love last”?

So what do we know about the scene now? Well people are into hook-ups, and I’d say from my unscientific method of investigation that about half of young adults have had a one-night stand, and about half of those people were lucky enough to turn that one-night stand into some kind of long-term relationship. Now, that is not to say that young singles of today are any more promiscuous than their parents, maybe just a little more open about what and how they do things. I’ve even found more young men and women ages 21-34 proud to tell you that they are virgins and have never had sex.

Single women for generations were expected to be married young or face dire consequences. As late as 1970, college-educated women earned less, on average, than a male with a high school education. A survey poll of the time found that almost two-thirds of college women said they would consider marrying a man they didn’t love if he met their other criteria, most of which revolved around financial security.

Today, by contrast, women are far less likely to put financial security ahead of love, and they express far less anxiety about the prospect of remaining unmarried if they do not find someone they love and trust. In America, today, women are far more cautious about getting themselves into relationships than men are. It is interesting now that women are more likely than men to want to maintain their personal space, their own bank accounts, and their own interests, including regular nights out with girlfriends and vacations on their own. It raises some interesting questions about today’s man and his ability to create support systems for himself beyond spouse and children.

To choose to be single, well that was a dicey option, and much harder to carve out as a satisfying life back in the 1950s and 1960s, even for those who would want such a life. During that same time period, men who were still unmarried in their early 30s were considered questionable and often denied bank loans or promotions. Unlike today, that choice of bachelorhood was not considered an option.

Fashion, culture, mores: all change; even our words change meaning. "I love you" once implied a serious sexual commitment. It is in wider use today meaning “I care about you,” - “I want or am happy with you in my life” or as an acknowledgement of various relationship with the individuals in your life. In fact, LOVE can have many meanings and be expressed in many ways, to many people. The most important, however, is how it will be expressed and sustained by you in your life. There are various studies that show love can and does last, and it’s not just for a rare and privileged few. Yet it usually takes a change of perspective and some conscious effort to maintain a loving state, especially beyond the euphoria of Lust and Fixation. But it is possible to cut through the confusion, both for you and for the people who are earnestly attempting to connect with you.

Let’s start with the word Love. We have long been told that we must love our selves before we could truly love someone else. Therein is the key. To turn the key, we must narrow the aperture of the word Love, for Love can mean all sorts of things. But by using one of its older forms - Agape - we have a far more potent form of the word Love. The secret knowledge regarding lasting love lies within that word Agape, in achieving the elusive and alluring ideal of Love. Those reporting greatest romantic love and closeness with their partners have somehow stumbled onto using Agape in their life, resulting in the reward of a more revved-up relationship.

To summarize . . .

Sometimes, when people are hurting and feeling rejected it’s often fueled by anxiety and a desire to feel better about themselves given the box they have put themselves in. This results in them not moving towards something positive; rather, they are trying to get away from something painful. When you’re in this emotional place yourself it’s hard to authentically connect with a new person. As much as you want to connect, you just don’t have the emotional stamina. Your heart is still occupied. You must come to a new truth of yourself to be able to declutter and dislodge those feelings of not being worthy. Those feelings of needing the presence of Sombody else for you to be loved. Once you start your examination, you will find you have all sorts of options to have love and be loved.

As you allow yourself to be aware, flexible, and able to express your authentic desire according to circumstance, you gain freedom, insight, and can acknowledge Love in your Life. You see Agape (love’s) multifaceted capability within you for great feats of compassion, empathy, and passion. You are not bound by the expectations of past customs, or cultures, or by what you have been through: you have the ability to change all that within you. You are wired for change. That wiring consists of being conscious, being aware and moving towards the freedom to be yourself - to be love and the desire to share however and with whomever you choose. It all depends on you: your feelings and your truth. Take some time to do the work of releasing your attachments. Then know you are Love, Eros, Agape expressing, rather than having that Somebody stand in for you. Share yourself as Love.

Aloha !