Mr..... Whatever

This is something I have been thinking of doing for a while, but let me start this way. I listen to a ... 3rd rate? Morning show on my way to work every morning. Every morning they struggle for interesting things to talk about, and every morning they get close, but generally have nothing to say. What I was thinking of doing was writing a blog every morning on the subject of their morning show. (Only to realize the inane nature of their banter precludes me from writing more than a sentence each morning.) This morning is different because I feel strongly on the topic.

As I was pulling onto the freeway this morning their segment started. To begin they sighted a book and even read an excerpt. (Something new, they usually get their material from Cosmo.) I just did some searching on the internet and I cannot find the book that they were referring to. The premise is this: Should you wait for "Mr. Right" or is having "Mr. Right Now" better than being alone?

Every woman's gut instinct is to say "Wait for True Love!!" Well, I challenge you to define that right now. It is as simple as listing three words the describe either the feeling or the act of being in "true" love. To be honest I scratch my head at this thought.

This radio show went on to discuss the idea of their perfect mate and how people's minds change as they grow up/grow older.

Now, I explain all of this because I want inject this blog with the things that I wanted to say to them.

I wanted to grab them and shake their faces. Then I wanted to ask the female (who is married) if she thinks love feels like she thought it would when she imagined it as a child/teenager. The answer, if I am not entirely delusional, would undoubtedly be "no."

Here are my theories on why. First, when you are a child of 10, and are beginning to think about prince charming sweeping you off of your feet, you have no idea what it is supposed to feel like. You are more interested in that all important kiss, becoming his princess, wearing the pretty clothes, and the living in his castle thing. We are taught that these are the fundamentals of love from what we see in Disney movies and fairy tales. The actual love part is secondary to the ability to get animals to do your chores and have fairies grant your wishes.

Later, in the teen years, we begin to think about how it may feel to be in love. The actual emotions that go into the act/state of being. Now, we may want to delude ourselves into believing that we start questioning this because we are are becoming evolved individuals and are speeding toward the enlightenment of adulthood. Let us level with ourselves for a moment. The reason we are thinking about how it feels is because we are receiving steady speed-balls of hormones from or glands. Speed balls that help us to cry at the drop of a hat and/or run screaming into our rooms because, inexplicably our parents are out to make our lives hell.

During these teen years crushes feel like life and death and lust is so real in our loins that this is what love feels like to us in this stage of our lives. We are also prone to watching teen films that teach us that our love has to be forbidden, fought for, and raging with passion and fire. Now.... although this sounds wonderful think about how fast you went through crushes in junior high and high school. One a week? One a month. At the very least one per term. (Because you switch classes and can no longer stair longingly across the room in history, but the guy in gym class has a wicked layup.) This is because fire and passion burn hot and fast. Once the passion is out out the picture what are we left with? An F in history and a complex about not sweating during the basketball unit. Certainly no "True Love."

In our 20's we have no idea what love is or how it is supposed to feel. What if we encounter it? We have no idea what it is. We start to feel like every love or even like that we experience pales in comparison to the way we felt in high school. That and there are two conflicting forces at work in your 20's: The need for sex and the need to find a long term relationship. This is where we begin to break out the Mr.Right and the Mr.Right Now categories.

Mr.Right will have a house and a job but still make us feel that crazy gut wrenching sensation when we look at him or he takes his shirt off... or does a layup. Mr. Right Now doesn't need a house, or a job he needs to fill one level of need, whichever level you are feeling particularly depleted in. This could mean he is a great kisser, or is really attentive. This could mean that he is great in the sack or a joy to be around. But not all of these things. Which is fundamentally what we want. House, job, gut wrenching, great kisser, great in the sack, cooks, cleans, attentive, huge... presence. All of that.

So now here is what I project for the 30's. Women start to feel the combine pressure of starting/having a family and longing for the fantasy that they have played out in their head for the past 20 years. They start to see every man as Mr. Right Now and concoct even more ridiculous standards for Mr. Right to abide by.

Conversely in the late 30's if you are still single, by virtue of impossible standards and Sex and the City reruns, your standards begin to degrade. You start to see anything with a penis as a possible candidate simply by virtue of their ability to inseminate you.

To recap: The phases of Mr. Right.

10-teen: Anyone who will kiss me and make me a princess.

Teen-20: Dreamy eyes, and nice voice... anyone who make me feel... that way.

20's: Has a job, a house, and fits into the tall dark and handsome category, aka makes me feel... that way.

Early 30's: Mr. Right is hiding. And now he needs a 401K and character references.

Late 30's: Mr. Right doesn't exist, if it has a penis, pays attention to me, and will let me use its penis for baby making it is in.


In my infinite knowledge and power allow me to dispel some myths.

This first thing I would like to address is a history lesson.
There was no such thing as "True Love" before there was French occupation of England. This is the age of the courtier. Norman conquest was around 1066 which means that things really got rolling around the 1100-1200's. Before this we don't see love matches, marriages were political and practical. And even during this period matches were political and for the best of both parties. Now, most historians attribute this need for romance to courtly life. In other words: free time and closed quarters. I want to place a stronger emphasis on the bard, the minstrel, the jester, and the poet. These were the people charged with spinning entertaining stories. This is where our love tales were born. Forbidden romance, princesses being saved from castles, and the ability to marry for love.


You are going to groan if you haven't already figured it out. But it is the media that is making you miserable. 10 year old girls are bummed that the cannot be saved by the prince, teens are bummed that their high school experience in no way resembles the ones portrayed on tv shows and in the movies. 20somethings regret not falling for their high school sweet heart and compare the men at the bar to their favorite media icons. It goes on and on.

I am not about to say that you must dispel the notion that you will ever have that gut wrenching, heart pounding The Notebook love.... What I want to point out is that it is an invented feeling. Poets who were writing about it, and indeed inventing it, had no idea what it was supposed to be like. And people no doubt experience things differently from one another. Not only from person to person but from age to age. An example that I can defiantly point to is teen to 20's. You will never again have that many hormones firing at once (except possibly during pregnancy) so there is no way to replicate those feelings in adulthood. It is silly to expect it.

Conversely it is hard for me to believe that people "fall" in love. I feel that if you have no choice in the matter there is no reason to search for it, there is no reason to wait around... if it will passively happen to you you should be alone until the magic moment happens and be happy until you die. Please tell me you have a problem with the notion too.

Okay, so I believe loving someone is a decision that you make. Not to be compared to picking out fruit at the grocery store, but more like choosing a friend. You either overlook their flaws or get over them. You either have a lot in common with them or learn to like what they like. Hopefully they can do the same for you.

If we approach romantic relationships the same way we will have far more success. You ask what of attraction? That I can describe in a few different ways. One is scientific one supernatural.

Science first shall we? Pheromones. This is how our bodies determine if who we are encountering is a sexual threat, or a predatory threat. This is how we determine if someone is beneficial to us, or if they are sexually attractive. The more you are around someone the more things you find that you like about them, the more tastes you get of those pheromones at different points the more your body recognizes them as sexually enticing. Da ta dada! Attraction.

Call it aura, call it personal energy, whatever... You can sense when a person walks up behind you because the disturb the air. They say that the more time you spend with a person the more your auras sink up. Well... take this a step further. The more time you spend with a person the more you learn about them. Instead of being blinded by their bad qualities you are able to see all the things that you actually like about the person.

Apply these things to a relationship... You meet someone you are not disgusted by them. You date. The more you get to know them the more you like them. You like their hair, their smell, oo! dreamy eyes! Then you "fall" in love. No, no, no... your bodies and auras sync up and you choose to love them. Then comes the hard part. Staying in love. You must, on a daily basis choose to wake up with them, go to sleep with them, continue to love them. It is not a conscious thing, but it is defiantly happening every day.

Sound romantic? No. But I think that things have a way of becoming inflated in our culture. Love, something that is beautiful and wonderful is put in some unattainable category where no one (especially women) can reach it. (Shorter arms) Love, something that is a chemical reaction in our bodies is treated like an ethereal notion of the heart...(an organ... wha?)

I offer a perspective on balance. Sure growing does a lot to change our views on love and our standards for a relationship, but I would rather people consider the facts. Consider themselves and be making decisions based on something that they have spent some time thinking about. The ten minutes you spent reading this for example... that gave you time to think. That is all I can ask.