It’s About Making Babies!

Annie at Smart at Love tells us that some women find  a ‘plain vanilla’ guy boring.

I like the comment a drunk Harrison Ford character makes, in Six Days, Seven Nights, "This is an island, babe. If you don’t bring it here, you won’t find it here." (explaining why he things tourists foolish for going to an exotic island to look for ‘romance’).

The problem is that dating is one of the immediate ways that come to mind, to ‘get to know’ a person.  And we have come  to view dating as the reason to pick a date.  So for many it just makes sense — you pick a partner to make that date as fun and memorable as possible.  And you date.

But what we really want is someone to help us live and enjoy our lives.  A dependable person that lends security and stability to our home and family, someone to help raise children, keep pets, and make the years an adventure.  Such a person should have depth to them.  Like a favorite children’s story, novel, or movie, someone that you can enjoy time after time. That even over time, you can put up with the warts and flaws.

And I think that is one of the reasons to avoid sex on the first, or even third date.  In order to get intimate that soon, you have to be dating with sex in mind.  When you look for a life partner, you should be evaluating character, consistency, discipline — all the things that make Daddy dear to you.  Could the sharp dressing lawyer be the right one?  Time well tell.  But until you know his middle name, how he feels about his parents and their friends, and your friends find him ‘wonderful’ instead of ‘hot’, he remains just a candidate.  This is not about ‘rules’ about when and how to date.  My suggestion is that you have to skip past the guys only looking for a date.

Until he knows your middle name, how his parents feel about you, and that he likes your friends, he has no business at all in your knickers.  If he is interested in you, that takes time.  If he wants a hot date, he isn’t looking for a partner (except for sex, and ‘partner’ isn’t the best word for what he wants there).  And if he gets a hot date, early sex, thrills, etc., that tells him you are not looking for a partner.

There is no easy way.  Boring is not something you want to look for in a date or a partner — it indicates a lack of common interests.  Or lack of common social skills.  Or arrogance on one side or the other.  Fix the arrogance first — decide you want a partner, not a hot date.  Next, look for signs of character.  Good grooming is important, fashion statements often indicate a lack of connection with people, self absorption, and always more investment of time and money in skills that won’t keep a couple together.  Being thought well of in the community is great, being the ’star’ is artificial and not always a nice personality.  Having friends is important — but are the friends common working people, or do they have a reputation for being shady?  Remember, you are looking for someone to help raise your kids, now.  Someone that rewarding will have their own charm.  Like almost any sunrise or sunset that you take the time to watch, they have their moments of wonder.  What your mother calls a ‘nice young man’ is unlikely to be the captain of the basketball team — he is more likely to have an even temper, reasonable employment prospects, come from a responsible family, and have a good reputation.  And who would you recommend to your daughter, to give her happiness and security?

Cosmopolitan and many other magazines are famous for articles on ‘how to get him to commit’.  I find this so very wrong.  The chances that one or two people looking for a hot date, and finding one, can then turn their introduction into a partner match is a really small chance.  Start out looking for a partner, even if he seems ‘plain vanilla’ to others, or even to you as a ‘hot date’ prospect, and your dates may be less exciting but more fun — just like the rest of your life together.

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Davezilla.com (’Clean Humor, Filthy Comments’) is a fun spot on the Web.  Featuring either a photo, a comment, or list of notes, visitors are invited to expand or explain.  Only most of us take a rather nasty perspective.  Done in fun, perhaps a little venting.

Today is a picture of an H2 Hummer in a parking space labeled for ‘Small Cars’ in Royal Oak, MI.

A visit to Jenny Craig Diet Centers some years ago opened my eyes to something I had never considered.  We don’t walk much.  And one strategy for change is to park at the far corner of the parking lot, instead of contending for the spot closest to the store door.  Now, I don’t think this strategy works all that much better than the rest of the program did for me, but I do park at the far edge of where people are parking.  I tend to wander a few extra aisles in whichever store I visit, so the extra distance doesn’t bother me.  And I don’t get the stress others seem to find in their goal of parking closer to the store.  I can walk past a lot of car spaces in a minute, a minute longer for the stop isn’t going to unduly influence my day.  I usually find myself thinking over purchases, choices, planning how to load my car, or consider my next errand.  The time spent from the store to the car certainly isn’t wasted.  Even when the weather is rotten, one or two extra minutes may be more uncomfortable than just a few seconds, but again won’t really change my day.

There will be no one to recognize that I parked close to the store or not.

I grew up watching Dad trying to park close to the store.  When Mom drove, she absolutely parked not one space further out that she had to.  Still does.  I think for Dad it was a gesture of care — wanted to gift Mom with a bit less effort, as a gesture of affection.  For Mom, though, there was more a sense that the ‘right’ way was to park close.  Possibly there is an element of ‘less exposure to attack’ in dark or bad neighborhoods, but that shouldn’t apply in daylight or shopping malls.

By parking farther out, I see, and say ‘Hello!’ to, more people.  I see more kids and parents interacting.  I get a chance to grab a cart to use and save someone else from having to push it to the store.  And the people needing a close spot have one less competitor.

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