So, you're going to call him (or her) for a date?

OK, so you're going to call him (or her) for a date...to do what? Movies, dining, dancing, a concert, a ball game, bowling, pool, some kind of party across town, or maybe you'll just be hangin' out together with mutual friends?

What do you think you want to accomplish on that first date? Hmmm. Consider my "TV watching principle"

I've watched my share of television shows--dramas, mysteries, situation comedies, investigation news journals, made-for-TV movies, etc. You get the idea. In my experience most TV shows, aside from offering some kind of emotional stimulation--momentary entertainment--they're not particularly memorable. Of course there are those exceptions to the rule. But in my experience a really memorable one gave me something I didn't have before, and it was packaged in a way that made it immediately "fit" into my life circumstances. I think the "take away" was memorable because it was immediately relevant, usable, and re-usable. That's true of the dating experience, too.

It's one thing to be "on a date," but it's quite a different and a comparatively more memorable experience when you do something cooperatively with your date. But you can ratchet up the value of that "take away" even more! Dating is most memorable when the experience you share is something you've planned together and then you actively do it together.

So, you say you're going to call him (or her) for a date? Make the first date an investigative experience, that is to say, purposefully plan some time together when you can discover and discuss your big interests (other than the opposite sex!). Thoughtfully ask each other and discuss this question: "Overall, what makes you tick. What do you generally enjoy doing the most, and what about it makes that personally meaningful (i.e., Why is it important to you)?

Then, if after that first date you're finding yourselves agreeing on the idea of another date with each other, don't wonder what you're going to do. Take the pressure off! Agree that for the next date you'll get together just to plan something that will require pooling your talents and skills to accomplish it...something you'll do together and that you'll both really remember!

More along the same theme next time. Have fun. Be yourself...and be Smarter!

Little Green People on Earth?

I'm really not a judgmental guy. Sometimes I may sound that way. When I watch adolescent boys and girls I find myself thinking, "I was never like that was I?" Then I think, "Yah, I was." But then I think, "What's the biggest difference I see between me, then, and what I observe now?" Two things come to mind, and I attribute them both to changes in our culture's mindset. I heard of someone who put green dye in her fish pond. The fish remained healthy, they acted like fish just as they had before--but they turned green! All that to say, I don't think it's the kids' fault any more than turning green could be blamed on those fish.

I can summarize the "two things" with the words "sex" and "bearing." "Sex" is my reference to the--and I really hesitate to use this term--pornographic influences we all seen in our culture and the impact these have on us all, particularly our young adults. Where can anyone turn and not hear or see some message about sex, and I don't mean just differences in gender? These messages saturate our media and marketing efforts. Unsubtly they dare young adults to be sexually active as early as they can. For the rest of us we're challenged (from a bathtub on a lonely beach!) to hang onto the sexual sizzle as far into our geriatric decades as we can.

"Bearing" is my reference to someone's personal conviction around a life purpose and his or her motivation and grit to tenaciously chase it. By contrast, and for example, much has been written about the upward trend in our nation's high school drop-out rate, about young men's (and women's) curious inclination to freeload at their parents' home through their 20s and early thirties, and about the grip binge drinking has on the high school and collegiate crowd.

The things that make romance smarter can have a near magical influence in adolescents' lives. Among those I'm privileged to observe around me day-to-day, I wonder who among them won't turn "green?"

Till next time, be yourself, have fun...be smart.

(PS: You can see that romantic sunset on the bay front at Newport, Oregon)

Those Nasty Barnacles.....Life Skill No. 8

If you spend any time at the beach you can see them a lot on the rocks and posts and structures along the waters' edge. Barnacles are little crustacean critters that can attach themselves to these surfaces, and to large fish, and to the hulls of ocean going vessels. Because the sheer numbers of these little creatures can grow and grow, they begin to slow ships' movement through the water. So the ships are routinely removed from service to scrape the Barnacles from their hulls. The ships are then returned to service.

People can acquire "Barnacles," too. Their influence is strikingly similar to their oceanic namesakes. They vary in the degree of influence they can have on people's lives and on the lives of people around them. But they can actually slow or stop a person's development and hinder his or her ability to reach personal goals or make self-desired contributions.

Here's a short list of destructive "Barnacles" I've observed:

• Drug Abuse (including Nicotine) Addiction or Illegal Drug use
• Alcohol Abuse and/or Addiction
• Chronic Gambling/Gaming
• Sexual Abuse and/or Sex Addiction
• Chronic Anger and/or Rage
• Addictive Behavior around Spending Money

Actually, I believe there may be some acquired skill (Life Skill No. 7) associated with one's ability to be Barnacle-free. However, it's often true that if a person already has or is going to accumulate crippling Barnacles, the critters' presence will be seen as early as his or her dating and courtship years. Keep a sharp eye out for critters that have already "attached" themselves to your dating partners. Their presence is telling you something. Listen carefully.

Until next time. Be Smart. Have fun.

Life Skill No. 7, Planners and Goal Setters--or not

Some people are planners. Some people don't, can't, or just won't plan--for whatever reasons. Some people are goal oriented. Other people aren't goal oriented, may think goals are stupid, or just don't care. Again, it probably doesn't matter why.

The real point is this: opposites can attract. If one of you is a planner or a goal oriented person you may find yourselves attracted to each other, in part, by the fact that one of you has a need the other can effectively and efficiently meet. I've seen that happen a lot. There can be a sort of magnetism in this dynamic. Both partners tend to benefit. There's recognition, some appreciation, and a real sense of being valued on both side of this relational equation. All of that can be a good thing.

But the "feeling appreciated and valued dynamic" can go stale. At some point those skills--or the lack of them--can become a potentially bad thing. As your relationship matures you both may gradually discover, and hopefully not too late, that this marvelous ability one brings to the relationship can feel meddlesome or even controlling. Ugh.

So, how do you fix that? Again, as with so many of these kinds of team dynamics, and the "rules" that can get set-up around them, it's best to see them and talk about how they feel to you--as a team--BEFORE you make a long-term commitment to the relationship. Carefully discuss how you both want to incorporate the skill one of you has into the ebb and flow of your working relationship.

For example, you might consider designing a formal agreement (an agreed upon "default" rule) that goes something like: "The one who has the planning/goal-oriented skills will always do the planning and organizing for the team UNLESS EITHER TEAMMATE CLEARLY AND EARLY COMMUNICATES THE DESIRE TO CHANGE THE RULE FOR THE PRESENT SITUATION. That's just one way you could do it and write your rule. Listen, be sensitive, and creative.

Put yourselves in the best position to know what you're getting yourselves into. Don't be in a hurry. Work together to make the skills (or non-skills) you each bring to your relationship work for you. Even non-planner types can do this. It's about having a Smarter Romance.

More next time. Be who you are. Have fun.

Having good success at family and extended family relationships...Life Skill No. 6

Let's face it. There may be few things more exhausting than trying to heal hurts inflicted by a family member. But it's one thing to deal with your own family. It seems to get even more complicated when the family members in question are in-laws. Then you've got to be c-a-r-e-f-u-l and sensitive to how your partner is responding to the situation, and how his or her perception of you're response may be affecting your relationship. No thanks to this stuff, a lot of well-meaning boy friends and husbands, especially, have found themselves in the cold dog house whining to come back inside.

Many of these situations can have a subtle "no win" clause built into them....one of those circular sorta deals. It probably reads something like, "In occasions of argument with your parents, you will always support me; but in heated arguments with either set of folks, if it turns out that I'm wrong, you're to blame for sticking up for me and making the folks so upset."

Of course most dating couples probably don't know any of these things, so they won't know to read through any contractual "fine print"--that is if they could even find any. So, that's where the following suggestions may be timely and helpful.

1. If you're in a dating relationship that feels like it could realistically develop into a long-term one, start arranging to spend time together in ways that give regular opportunity to be around your partner's family--especially the people who wield the most influence in it.
2. The best way to manage in-law (or potential in-law) relationships is to have a good idea what they're likely to look like and be like. Empower yourself with the information you need (#1, above) to make an early decision whether to continue developing this relationship or to walk away now. If you get a clear indication that an in-law role with these people could be a doozy of a challenge, and yet you make the decision to press forward, remember the moment you made that decision--where you were, what you were doing, and what was going on around you. If these relationships do get challenging up the road, remember--you saw it coming and CHOSE to stick it out!

Be smarter. Be yourself. Have fun.

Ugh...Marrying one of your in-laws?

Now that's a nightmarish thought. We all know now mother-in-law and father-in-law relationships make great source material for jokes of all kinds. It's a product of the curious and often irritating contrasts we see--and experience--in families' styles, priorities, and general ways of doing things. And certainly, those contrasts are predictable and vary in content and intensity.

In-law challenges are one of the "top five" sources of controversy for couples--and they don't go away! We can probably all think of people we know who have moved themselves from one town to another, or across the country, just to ease the tensions that in-law stuff has introduced. But making that move may address the issue in one way and actually contribute to it in other ways. For example, I've met couples that made this kind of move only to trade the daily emotional wear and tear of being geographically close for the financial costs associated with vacation trips back there, frequent telephone conversations, and tense discussions related to "you get to see your folks a lot more frequently than I get to see mine!" So, once you've got them, there may be no simple solutions to these kinds of dilemmas, and the really complicated ones are just that--complicated!

There's at lease one more really important piece to this discussion. We previously considered how every relationship develops a set of "rules." These are both spoken and unspoken expectations that become woven into the fabric of the relationship, and it starts to happen very early in the dating and courtship process. It's not until a partner challenges one of these rules--whether it happens intentionally or completely by accident--that both partners become keenly aware of its presence and influence. For example, there are certainly many "rules" that get set-up around a couple's relationship to their in-laws. The very nature of a couple's contact with mom and dad or brothers and sisters, how frequently, for how long, around what events, and at whose house, etc., all of these things can have "rules" associated with them. They get set-up very early in a couple's relationship...and this is just one good example.

So, what's a person to do?

The best remedy to an in-law challenge is this: Carefully and intentionally investigate what you're getting yourself into from the beginning--before you make this a permanent arrangement!

• Do you think there's a "rule" getting set-up? What does that feel like to you? Discuss this openly with each other--and as often as you feel you need to. Talk about what you see and what you're experiencing. Can you? When you do, what is your partner's response? Friendly, defensive, dismissing, open...what? Is that OK with you?
• What are the dynamics of your in-law experiences? Maybe these are fun events--they're great? Maybe they're actually destructive! How are the two of you working together to establish some shared and helpful boundaries? You can set your own (mutually agreed upon) rules to manage these destructive dynamics so they don't manage your relationship. You need to. You must.
• Finally, if you do what I just suggested (above) you'll be able to recognize and anticipate how your in-laws might influence your relationship long term. Is what you've "seen" in that long-term view OK with you and with your partner? If you face this challenge purposefully, together, and intentionally from the very beginning of your dating and courting experience, you'll find yourself (or yourselves) making an intentional decision to continue, or, maybe to end the relationship based on what you can see coming. Generally, once a person has made an intentional choice, it's easier to live with its long-range implications. It's painful for us to have to do that when we feel we were "blind sided."

Be smart. More next time.

Making, Keeping, and Enjoying Close Friends...Life Skill No. 5

There's an old saying, "You'll know a person by the friends he or she keeps." It's probably very true that the people we're most comfortable spending our time with indicate something about us, our values, and our priorities. But there's another side to this coin, too. You're getting a message when you know a person has very few friends. Maybe it's that he or she doesn't get much satisfaction engaging the company of other people?

The emotional environment of courtship and romance does something to people. For one thing it's stimulating and motivating and fun just knowing there's a new person in your world who is going out of his or her way to spend time with just you! It's intoxicating to realize someone thinks you're special and actually demonstrates that belief by making room for you in his or her life-- and in a way that's different from the way they treat anyone else. And because courtship and romance does that, it creates something of an artificial environment--one whose dynamics will not always be and feel exactly the way they do during the courtship process. That can be curiously tricky.

The emotional environment of dating and courtship is comparatively short lived. Those highly stimulating dynamics prompted by interpersonal mystery and intrigue and punctuated by a precious sexual tension don't stay "that way" and with "that kind" of intensity forever. The motivators prompting partners to do things for each other, to be there for each other, and to sacrifice for each other or for the relationship's well-being, can gradually decrease; but certainly not because they don't care for each other anymore. It's just that the novelty begins to wear off. Thankfully for us all it's not really "gone." It's just not the main focus anymore and it takes a little more effort to "spark" it and then some valuable dedication to "fan it into those hot flames."

So, what does this have to do with the person I mentioned above who has few friends? Exactly this: the dynamics of courtship and romance prompt partners to take emotional and inter-personal risks that they wouldn't otherwise take. They'll go places they normally wouldn't feel at all comfortable going and they'll do things they otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable doing. They'll sell each other on the idea that they're far more comfortable with people and making friends than they really are in fact. Is this a malicious act on their part? Certainly not--it's just the way everybody's wired to respond internally to the special dynamics of courtship and romance.

So, how does one really discover, for sure, the kind of comfort a courtship partner has for making, keeping, and enjoying close friends? Start with the two points I offered at the end of the last blog entry and add the following helpful suggestions:

• Spend time together in the company of each others friends. Choose settings that provide opportunity to get well acquainted and on a first name basis with each other.
• What do you know about your partner's "old" friends? For example, friends from junior high, high school, or college? Is there any contact or communication with them now and how frequently?
• How often does your partner talk about his or her friends? What is the character of those comments? For example, is it friendly, unfriendly, positive, negative, etc?
• What have you observed about how easily your partner makes friends? Does he or she follow-up those friend-making experiences by spending any planned time with them?
• How easy of difficult is it for the two or you to plan and then spend time with each others friends? For example, after you've developed a clear dating or courting commitment to each other--one your friends all recognize--do you feel there's a difference now in your inclination to spend time alone together vs. with friends and family members?
  
• Do you feel, or does your partner feel, a very strong preference to spend your together time away from the "interruptions" from friends? If so, how does that preference feel to you both right now? Have you discussed that question to your mutual satisfaction keeping in mind that you'll have lots of time to be all alone together if or when you decide to make your relationship permanent, i.e., marriage? What might this preference to be alone begin to look and feel like if you two were married? Is that OK with you?
  

Be yourself. Have fun. More next time