Kung-Fu Catfights in Search of Compatibility

Over the weekend, it’s estimated that 10,000 people between the ages of 22 and 35 showed up single and ready to mingle at a matchmaking event organized by the Chinese government in Shanghai. 

With the belief that you stick to your own, a two-day event, open exclusively to Chinese nationals became the city’s largest ever love fest.

It was estimated that 6,000 tickets were sold to single ladies and if the 4000 men that bought tickets liked it,  they could heed the wise words of Beyonce and put a ring on it. The ratio of women to men was three to two, so you could imagine the Kung-Fu cat fighting that might have unfolded on the day.

Comically, around 3000 parents tagged along to the event to help filter through the germy men to each find their respective daughter’s a gentleman. Long queues of singles waited for a chance at a five minute chat with participants of the opposite sex. 

The event was organized as a reaction to the rising numbers of single women in China who waited longer to marry and refused to settle for men of lower socioeconomic status. 

It got me thinking about marrying your equal.  While at the gym this morning, my personal trainer quizzed me on my criteria for a future partner. While I wasn’t particular on profession, I knew that as I got older, I’d want to end up with an intellectual equal (or have him be intellectually superior to me). 

I needed a challenge. I needed to be mentally and emotionally stimulated and since I worked hard, I wanted someone who shared the same values and sought success through honest, hard work (like I do). 

While I’m a champion for love, I don’t think it’s always enough to sustain a relationship so I sought high intellectual and emotional intelligence, this is what I typically found in my friendship group. My besties were all dynamic women with plenty of depth and while we were all in different occupations, I respect each and every one of them as equals so I popped friendship on my list too. You need to be friends so that you’re equals so when fights unfold, you both have boxing gloves and both have protective pads – guaranteeing you fight fair and that no one is left alone in the ring. 

Friendship canceled out snobbery and if any of us were social snobs within our group, I’d say, I was probably most guilty of it. 

I do wonder if snobbery is a sensible or superficial argument however. For example, if every guy wanted to marry a mental equal, then they’d enter into increasingly competitive relationships (on the plus side affairs with secretaries might end) and a plethora of other problems might arise. If snobbery was standard among men then neither Princess Mary nor Duchess Catherine Middleton would have had a chance at marrying their loves. My girlfriends might also not be in their relationships if they had looked at their partner’s careers over their compatibility. After considering this, I confused myself and lost all direction for this blog. 

I hate fence sitting, so I did it till sitting hurt my backside and bounced off with a bit of clarity. 

 At the aforementioned Shanghai match-making event, 6000 women showed up in hope of finding the one went with the naked admission that what they had tried so far hadn’t worked. 4,000 men concurred and just like that 10,000 people had something in common. 

United in cause but not necessarily status, the quest among all of them was for compatibility. There was no formula but their was a search for chemistry. 

The equation was 1+1, the science combined biology with chemistry and failed history would inspire an exchange of language; the language of love – that would speak more profoundly than any degree could, it would work harder and sweat more than a bricklayer in forty degree heat and would lay down the foundations to make the partner their home and in the eyes of the law, their union would be recognized. Love was about bringing together many specialties to create a special tie. 

No psychic could foresee it, no singular specialty could sustain it and no level of education could inform it. Compatibility was key and every individual had the right to search for it and deserved to find it.

For love of rhyme and love of love, I wrote a poem to summarize the above:

The terms and conditions are yours to make,

Strictness and refinement are fine when your heart’s at stake,

The greatest lesson that can be learned,

Is that your love and affection should be earned,

The one that fights for your affection,

is the one worth your attention and your reflection,

While he or she may be flawed in one way or two,

Only you can decide what is perfect for you.

  

Would love to hear your thoughts on this one….

The art of overcoming fear to find love

Since writing this blog, I’ve assumed the role of relationship counselor for many friends  and happily so! To all those telling me your stories keep doing so because it gives me great material for these blogs. One common thread among those seeking love is fear – of rejection, of a failed relationship, of over exposure and then it struck me what love in its nakedness is all about …embracing fear. 

We begin with our quest for love with a fear of rejection, I know many people happily in relationships now who fought entry into a relationship because they didn’t want to ask the girl they were interested in out. It’s what also helps maintain sexist roles in relationships…most women shy away from the idea of asking the man of their interest out for that same fear. Most of us concede that since we do a great deal within the relationship, we deserve courtship and deserve not to go through the humiliation of knocking on one’s heart and having that door shut in our faces. Like a Monet painting what seems nice from far can be a huge mess up close, so we even avoid finger-painting  and just dabbling in it.

When a relationship falls apart there is another fear that takes over…the fear of falling for someone because of the all consuming changes in life that quickly follow those three words that take a world of mustered courage to exclaim. Having loved and lost, a tower of terror is quickly built to barricade one’s emotions.  I have one friend now happily in a relationship who after her first breakup, swore off love for a year. It happened as everyone said it does, love came when she wasn’t looking and she fought it with all of her strength. In her mind, she would have happily never loved again because the work required to sustain a healthy relationship was frankly too daunting for her to invest herself into it. Courage is said to be fear that has said its prayers, so she said hers, embraced love and gave fear the flick.

Her relationship before this crumbled because of another type of fear; fear of physicality and stuffing it up! In her first relationship she was unable to show affection. She put this down to her conservative upbringing and her inexperience. She was wrong. The entire relationship was and that’s what had held her back from taking a leap of faith and a pirouette into passion. Her second relationship was different. Her new love made sure of it and with that security came the removal of fear of intimacy. It was something that even the most experienced had faced at some point in their relationships. 

Another friend shared a similar story of her first time with her new boyfriend. Emotionally famished from relationships’ passed, she had no desire to satiate her new boyfriends hunger for her. She was robbed of her ability to reciprocate love because of the avaricious way that her affection had previously been sought. Love; once tightly knit was unwoven and tangled and needed her new sweetheart to stitch up her old heart. Without pressure or persistence, he promised her a lifetime of love at her leisure. She found somebody to fix the seams of her frayed heart and her fear of being hurt diminished. 

For a while, fear of losing her love reared its insecure head in her relationship. Nothing but God had a promise of forever but for some reason, the brave of us keep seeking love.

I wondered why anyone would stupidly throw themselves into a situation that they feared and the answer of why we try came through Ernest Hemingway. I’ve always been a huge fan of his writing because he has great conviction in his commentary.  He is frank and I love honesty even if I disagree with it.

One of my favorites (that I do agree with) is when he said “the best way to know if you can trust someone is to trust them.” It is so perfect in its simplicity. 

What is indirectly explained is that in order to cure our curiosity, we face fear to fall in love and answer our own questions about people. 

Hemingway is also famed for saying, “man can only be destroyed, but never defeated.” To say this means we never truly lose in love, we learn lessons, we gain confidence in our ability to give love, we solve the mystery of what we’re looking for and though emotionally, temporarily, we feel destroyed, we are never completely overcome by the battle. 

We’re all amateur artists, trying to craft a future for ourselves. In our painting, a significant other will often appear, and with every heartbreak a new stroke of our brushes better defines what the significant other should look like. 

We fear error but we need trial to complete the picture. We take our time, because you can’t rush an artist and we fight fear for love, for the chance of living the masterpiece.

Mr not-too-bad...too bad for you.

Madeleine had just lost her sister to marriage and Greg the gorilla with his age old hunter gatherer qualities set his sights on Maddy as his playmate. He would court her for a while. She would resist. This would not be a Tarzan and Jane story but after much persistence from Greg, many beats of the chest and hairy advances, Madeleine finally succumbed to Greg the Gorilla. 

He was far from perfect but he was available. Madeleine would live to regret this decision for years into the future but for a while, when the future looked bleak, Greg, in the right light, seemed attractive. Madeleine learnt that she had a great capacity for love. She learnt that she was not as superficial as she thought and she learnt that she could love anyone if she was patient with them. Great lessons from a horrid experience.

George and Madeleine lasted a while. They were comfortable but not passionate about each other. Madeleine gave love as she wanted to be loved. Greg the Gorilla was content in his conquest. He got the girl and he was bananas over her for a while…till he was ready to play with the other animals in the wild. Madeleine felt used but accepted that maybe the downfall of her animal kingdom was her fault. She answered Greg’s mating call when she knew in the depths of her heart that he was not the one. She settled.

Plato said, ‘every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back,’ but I don’t think he meant completion came with any old whisper. It had to be the same tune, the same songbird chirping in reply – not a bear to a bird.  

Women in years to come would sing a song of the same melody that Madeleine once chirped. Then an IVF study would be released that would tell women to do exactly what Madeleine had sworn she’d never do again…settle for Mr-not-too-bad. 

An IVF specialist advised women the world over, this month to change their criteria for Mr Right in order to more speedily settle down and bear children rather than resort to freezing their eggs. Fertility clinics have begun targeting their services to women in their 20s and 30s, but the professor leading the study, Professor Kovacs warned women that the success rate from egg freezing was low and that women couldn't rely on it later in life.

This got me thinking about whether having children with a man you half loved was worth sacrificing the love you envisioned for yourself? I would much rather stick with a man I loved who I couldn’t have children with (God forbid that I can’t) than have children with a man who wasn’t everything I hoped for. The logic behind that is that I would have the chance to know and find the love of my life before I ever got to know my children so I’d rather keep something that I knew and loved rather than give it up for a child I didn’t know. 

For those wondering, I’m perfectly healthy and to my knowledge, able to have children, but this was worth the contemplation. 

Professor Kovacs of the IVF study stressed, “"maybe there is no Mr. Right and you have to settle for Mr. Not-Too-Bad. There is no such thing as a perfect person for anybody, and even if they're perfect now, they won't be perfect in five or 10 years time."

Professor Kovacs either settled for Mr-not-too-bad or was going through a bitter breakup and my assessment of her would read; broken-hearted and embittered, but I’d never call her accurate. 

I loathe the idea of settling. I detest the thought of being with someone who is less than what I hoped for and I’m sickened by the nightmare of spending the rest of my life with someone who is less than perfect for me. It’s not that my expectations are too high; it’s that whoever disagrees with me has expectations too low for themselves. 

There’s no reason to want less than perfection for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you’re the cleaner or the Queen, you’re a person, deserving of love and that love should come in the form you dreamed, not something you find in a discount bin with a  short shelf-life and an early used by date. 

Freeze your eggs if you must, but if you’re putting all of your eggs in one basket, then make sure with that investment, that the basket is strong enough to support you – that to me is the perfection most women seek and it’s out there. When you find it (because it’s only a matter of time), that love will be perfect in five and ten and even twenty years time. It won’t be a fairytale, it will be hard work but it will be real and that’s so much better than the imaginary. 

If you’re in it for life, be in it for love and leave Greg the Gorilla in the jungle where he belongs. Let Madeleine’s lesson be yours too; Mr-not-too-bad is also Mr-not-good-enough for you.

Walk like a man, Talk like a man

 I wrote a text to someone and got a response back. Was this because he was interested? Was it because he wasn’t interested so didn't feel compelled to game play? Is it because he's not a game player? Is it because he learnt his lesson from previous relationships not to keep a girl waiting lest he lose her interest.... either way for a change I'm not interested. I haven't sworn off men but I may slowly be becoming one.

I'm not about to have a sex change (I'm perfectly happy being female) but I am adopting some masculine qualities... not because they’re the better gender but because trial and error has taught me that some of their tricks work wonders in the trade of love. 

Sometimes the hardest decision in life is knowing which bridge to walk and which to burn? With men...the equation is simple; if he is stupid enough to walk away then you need to be smart enough to let him go.  This conclusion isn't an easy move to commit to. When you're anxiously waiting for a crush to notice you - the last thing you want to do is accept that he is just not that into you. However, accepting a closed door may be exactly what is needed to open a new one.

 I was chatting to a friend and her partner the other day on persons of interest to me at the moment. That’s not a typo, there are many. My friends partner was shocked and responded with a 'my goodness Miriam you move on pretty quickly don't you?!' the conversation quickly turned into a look at me as a man (if I was one) - we all agreed I'd be the charming womanizing male I constantly fall for because I loved words and loved women.  With crush a) - I wasn't sure he was interested so I exited the game, crush b) was more about reciprocating his interest because I appreciated his qualities and interest in me but he was very slow to act. Slow paced seduction was the game of crush c) as well and crush d)'s life and my own were gravitating towards each other but neither of us were forcing it to happen. Stay tuned on - e) all of the above.

Neither of us were sure of the others interest or our compatibility. All of these boys were wonderful people with admirable qualities. Some inside investigation revealed that the cream of the crop saw goodness in me too but admitted that it would be a long time before he did anything about his interest.

Enter my man brain. I tried to empathize with this guy to understand why if he was interested he would resist dating me and then I took a walk in his shoes. If I were a hot young male with many girls at my disposal, lots of travelling to do and lots of “single” fun to enjoy, would I commit to a girl that would be fabulous but limit that freedom or would I chance it and hope she was single when I felt older and ready for the responsibility?

The answer? I’d buzz around bachelor-hood and like a bee to honey would stick around that sweet life for as long as I could. Love, while ideally about romance and rescuing for us ladies, for men it’s about work, commitment and fatherhood (that’s daunting even for me) so for a change, I’m toe tapping in man-land and seeing it from their perspective.

While I’m thinking like a man, I’m acting like a lady and still waiting for the man to approach but in walking in his shoes, I’m more understanding about the wait and happier to fill my time with many over being miserable pining over just one. If he can wait, so can I – but not necessarily for him.

Under the Sea, darling it's better, down where it's wetter...

 

The little Mermaid taught us a valuable lesson in its theme song, “under the sea.” The lyrics read: 

Just look at the world around you
Right here on the ocean floor

Such wonderful things surround you
What more are you looking for

Under the sea, under the sea
Darlin’ it’s better
Down where it’s wetter,
Take it from me

Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away

While we devotin’
Full time to floatin’
Under the sea

I’ve never believed that the saying that there were plenty more fish in the sea was true. In the dating world, this was a response to some miserable newly single sod who couldn’t see beyond his grief but he continued crying because he knew better. He knew it would be a struggle to find, lock in and connect with a new person. 

Love is ridiculous and the risk of exposing yourself entirely to a stranger with hope of no judgment and security is petrifying and idiotic if you were to rationalize it but for the thrill of finding the person who’ll stay we risk embarrassment anyway. 

I had the search for a soul mate described to me through a Google Advanced Search analogy. He (for a change) said, if you go through the motions of doing a Google Advanced Search when researching then you run the risk of your search yielding no results. The longer your list, the narrower the results, the less likelihood you have of finding your ideal match. 

I didn’t like what he was suggesting because it would mean the end to specificity on my list. While we both agreed that everyone has a right to be fussy about their future, he decided he didn’t want love unless it was perfect while I considered the merit of making compromises on what is trivial or negotiable in order to find true love. 

I believe one of the greatest miracles in life is finding love because against all odds, one person finds you among billions sees all of your flaws and chooses to stay with you anyway. If there was a man willing to do that for me, I sure as hell was going to give him a chance….but not without my checklist (I still have standards). 

However, what I realized in days past’ is that when my checklist became less refined, I was swimming in a whole new ocean of eligible bachelors. 

For centuries men have argued the right to keep their options open, to play the field and as such have battled with the limitations of monogamy. Women began to embrace this mentality during the sexual revolution of the 1960’s but not without a sexual stigma. 

I haven’t cracked. This isn’t one of those posts. My polygamous thoughts have not been about being with many but about thinking of many… till one emerges as supreme. 

I do take issue with this free spirited thinking though even though it’s my own because the same treatment is being reciprocated to me and I don’t like it one bit!

It seems while I was diving to the depths of my ocean, other girls took a dip and we all ran into the same big fish that is currently testing the waters. Now my water is murky. Yuck!

He’s enjoying his leisurely paddle through paradise (it’s a pool full of women – of course he was) and so he should – he’s quite a catch and it’s been a while since he’s been allowed to enjoy this sort of attention.  With adoration from the starfish (me) the clownfish and the jellyfish (the others) naturally he’ll basque in the glory of his bachelorism and take his time to select a soul mate (me again). While he’s doing that, he’ll connect with the catch of the day (clownfish and jellyfish) with reasons unknown to me. 

However in case this big fish has saltwater in his eyes and fails to see how fabulous I am, I have a backup plan. There are some sharks bathing in Big Fish’s pool too and they’re worth noticing. 

None of them have swum into my net yet but they have brushed close by and indicated a bit of interest so they have my attention. While ordinarily I’d advise to keep your eye on the prize, for the first time I see that the ocean is in fact full of flirty fish and maybe there’s merit in meeting them too for a chance that they may be better suited to me.  

I’m not sleeping around, I’m swimming around and as a starfish, it’s my right to explore the ocean I’m in. Starfish before me have been doing it for centuries and we’re not extinct yet so the strategy must have worked.

The ocean is deep, the fish are many and the lessons are far from learnt. While I’m getting better at untangling myself from the seaweed and escaping the catfish’s bite, I’m not through meeting the other stars of the sea so if Big Fish is too busy to give me my deserved attention, I’ll happily busy myself too, and maybe even meet another starfish ….

Excuse me while I take a dive in the pool of deep, dark and very handsome, there may be bigger fish to fry.  

Under the sea, under the sea
Darlin’ it’s better
Down where it’s wetter,
Take it from me ....

Love triangles and less than terrific timing...

Jessica likes James but her friend Julie likes him too. Julie has banded with Jessica's frenemy who also secretly happens to like James. None of them have discussed it with each other for fear of open competition or acceptance of defeat. They will all continue to court and pursue till James takes his pick. Lucky James.

 James is a little popular and a lot confused. He flirts with all but chooses none. James' friend Jono is more astute in his search. He knows exactly what he wants and that is Jessica but Jessica can't decide if being with Jono is where her life has been headed towards or if she'd rather toss both and go for their friend Jack. Friendships will be tried, loyalties will be tested and hearts will inevitably be broken. For the sake of peace, should all step away and bow out of the battle gracefully or should they follow their hearts with the belief that there is nothing more valuable than finding love?

James was in love once but when it was over, he saw the ugly side of his ex. He shook hands with bitterness, rubbed shoulders with rage and flirted with fury, but he stomped all over regret and refused to let it toy with his mind. Even though the outcome of his breakup would have allowed it. She moved on far quicker than he would have expected.

 Affairs, betrayal and recycling of relationships are something experienced the world over so it was all too important to find the person that shared his ideals and would promise the same security that he promised in a relationship second time around.

Betrayal was the basest of human actions yet James having experienced it in his past relationship had peace. It seemed everyone he knew was dating someone who somebody else loved before and although he didn't like it, he accepted the loss and soldiered on. He would rather an old love have love than halt the love of a heart that could never truly be his. This was simultaneously noble and stupid.

Jessica  had other wonderful friends who had caught partners in the act of cheating. The cheater and the mistress would go on to live happily ever after, while the cheated would be left to contemplate the loss, experience extreme lows and for the first time know loneliness. Fortunately, Jessica's friend was surrounded by wonderful people to uplift her but she'd often question why the person at fault got to know joy first?

Jessica would often tell her that it was important to experience a period of loneliness to build one's character so that when love came knocking she'd be complete enough to answer the door and let love in. Without development of one's self, it would be a relationship of dependance not one in which she could give yourself wholly to her other half.

Enter unfortunate timing for James and Jessica.

James and Jessica were chatting the other day and he sweetly contemplated that experiences lived out without a loved one were empty, futile and incomplete to him. He pondered that until his plus one could share in the joys of his life, he wouldn’t know contentment. This was the most beautifully expressed quest for love that Jessica had heard in a long time. She would have fallen for him instantly if she wasn't aware of the call to be guarded while he was still healing. He wouldn't be ready to love her for a while and so she accepted his friendship and would happily help him heal.

The problem here for Jessica was that while James claimed he was ready to move on, he continued to tell Jessica how perfect his ex (Gretchen) was. He mused on all of Gretchen’s good qualities and feared that he would never find those qualities again. Jessica didn’t voice her issue with this but if she had that night over, she would have asked, why you would want a repeat of your last relationship, if that formula failed you? He was blinded by love and it would be a while before he could see past Gretchen's good qualities. This was testament to his great character, not necessarily hers.  Gretchen sounded awful to Jessica. She tried not to judge..

She was at a crossroads… would she wait for James to be ready? Would she pay greater attention to Jono or Jack? Would she show James what he could have if he chose to love her? She didn’t want to wait because she held firmly to the belief that the man that chose to be with her would be instantly sure that she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

If there was one lesson she’d always clung to from her youth it was that the right thing at the wrong time is still the wrong thing. This was true for James and Gretchen’s relationship and it was true for her situation now.

Jessica could have sat and pontificated on the things James was missing out on by dwelling on the past. She could have sat and tried to win James over. She could have even flirted with a different fate and seen where Jono or Jack could take her but she decided against all of those options because she’d been there, done that, been hurt and grown stronger.

Self worth was the greatest gift she could give herself. She’d let the other girls compete because for her, love was not a contest, it was a blessing, and if James didn’t want her, she didn’t want him either – not because he was bad, blind or a poor judge of character, but simply, because he wasn’t the one…and she would never accept anyone less for herself.

 

When times are tough you must play rough!!

My friend and I have fiercely been mapping out a game plan of how she can seduce and keep the man of her dreams. Why she has any male problems at all is a mystery to me; she's stunning, fit, thin, and intelligent and is so sweet but that goodness has so far only attracted the senseless and the steroid-induced.

The day we discussed her dating dilemmas was the day I overheard a separate set of females also plotting to win over the same man. The diva in me was about to tell these sisters to step aside, my friend after all was the only person good enough to be with this man. These women however, were all singing from the same hymn book and the lyrics sounded something like Irene Cara’s ‘holding out for a hero.’ 

The sisters after unreturned calls, agonizing nights waiting by the phone, drunken and dateless dusks out had decided to wear the pants - they weren’t waiting for men to take over they were doing it for themselves.

Lucky or unlucky men? I can't decide.

I pondered on whether it would be easier if we just did the asking but I didn’t like the ramifications of doing that. The end of men asking us out would shred chivalry to bits.

No more proposals, no more romance but on the plus side, since most women of our time are such control freaks it would also mean the end of our man-made insanity. If we no longer had to fret about who was asking who, what it meant if he did or didn’t text, what it meant if he took us to McDonald’s over Aria (apart from the calorie counting), what on earth would we women do with all of our time?

Men would be emasculated and lazy because of it and we’d never know if the person we were with was with us for us or just for convenience. In my idealistic mind, it’s much more interesting seeing the man work for your love, vying for your attention and pleased in his conquest. 

On the flip side, with the increase in demand for men and lack of supply, I wholeheartedly accept why women would rather chase and lose than never run the race and feel the rush that comes with winning.

I look at love like a crystal meth addict. It eats away at your brain, your looks fade with more of its use and it's damn costly to your lifestyle but the thrill is too intense a rush, the joy too deep, the addiction too unbearable that stopping it is deadly painful.

Sign me up we all used to say to the torture until these women took control but it seems while we're all addicted to the high, we're all buying from the same dealer and while he’ll flirt with many, he’ll only truly want to be with one. Game on? You betchya!

One of the women I know has to compete with five other women for one man's attention. She’s doing an ok job of sustaining his interest but it pains me to see the daily mental struggle involved with chasing. It means daily affirmations that you are good enough, it means allowing jealousy to overcome you (and that’s ugly), wondering if he is responsive out of courtesy, kindness or adoration. It's true what they say, it's rough out there in the dating world. 

She doesn’t just have women of the same age, good looks and intelligence to compete with – she also has the gay community questioning his sexuality and also competing for his heart. 

Then there are all of these ridiculous rules to follow. Like the stupid, don't call after the first date for three days? Don't kiss on the first date, don't be the one to text first... The list goes on and the migraine lingers.  

I’m not testifying to the Gospel according to “Dating 101” but as painful as the wait can be, distance gives clarity, courtship gives you something to look forward to and that call after a little bit of a waiting period is the crystal meth fix I was talking about; addictive, amazing and mind-altering. Amorousness follows. Neurosis ensues. Love grows. Hallelujah and amen to that!

I'm from the school of thought that if you like someone you should do something about it. Whatever is within your comfort zone is as far as you should go. Be noticed but don’t compromise your morality and  be kind to yourself if the object of your affection, objects to your advances. Play by the rules, or step dangerously outside of the lines, whatever you choose, know that finding love is worth the struggle. Here’s hoping my friend wins her man and that everyone feels free enough to follow and find love. 

Heartbreak can be devastating. Picking yourself up to search for love again can be the mightiest struggle you’ll have to endure but it’s worth the search, no matter how rough you might have to play.

In words better than I could articulate, “it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”