SR Nuts & Bolts: Dating Around an Active Theme

The family holiday scene, left, represents a variety of cooperative and collaborative dynamics. Those dynamics contribute to make the event a success--or a disappointment. Some of the dynamics represented there are complex and demanding. Others are simple and comparatively "free"--all a person had to do was "show up."
In general relationships are about cooperation and collaboration. Of course cooperation and collaboration can happen at many levels. Cooperation on a championship football team, for example, requires a high degree of complex behavioral dedication to a collaborative effort. By comparison, your daily relationship to your neighbor, although you share some geographic proximity, may require little cooperative or collaborative energy at all.

In my book, Smarter Romance, I discuss the merits of people dating around some mutually agreed upon themes. I encourage dating partners to think of themselves as a team. SR helps couples explore the merits for dedicating themselves, from the very beginning of a dating relationship, to the idea of working together as teammates. Consequently, their initial shared goal is about getting to know each other just well enough to launch into a shared project. They do so with the understanding that they will learn a lot more about each other in the process of working together.

The "getting to know each other" process enlists teammates immediate and active dedication to accomplish something constructive--something they can have fun accomplishing as a team. I call these constructive events "projects," and they can be as simple as building and flying a kite, tag-reading through a book together, or planning a surprise birthday party for a mutual friend. On the other hand they might be comparatively more complex, like planning and then coordinating a big, fun happening for friends, volunteering together to help build a house through Habitat for Humanity, or orchestrating a cross-country trip.

So, the agenda for your first date is already set. It's specific and simple: Get initially acquainted by asking each other a lot of good questions! (Of course you can do this over coffee or dinner or...?) The idea at this point is to discuss the things you both like; discover what kinds of things you are each into? This initial effort shouldn't take more than an hour or two and the information will help you get a sense for the kinds of creative projects you might want to set-up and tackle together as a team. Perhaps you realize after even this first date, "Nope, I really don't want to spend any more time with this person." That's real; it's OK.

If you decide on a second date together, your agenda is effectively set. You can meet to firm up what you want to do and how you want to do it together, or you can launch out into your first shared project. Your pooled efforts to accomplish something will quickly uncover a sense of purpose beyond the usual contemporary and predictable dating events with all their associated lulls, surprises, and confusion. "Themes" will quickly and spontaneously play out of what you choose to do together and they will help you identify a larger meaning and purpose for your developing relationship whether it proves to be long or comparatively short.

SR is about character development through constructive dating relationships. Give it a try! You've got everything to gain. Learn more from previous postings, and by all means SIGN UP for the updates, then let me know what you are thinking...leave a comment.

So, until next time...have fun, be safe, and be smart!

Dick

Practice Makes Perfect

I learned to whistle. I was pretty young. I don't remember who I saw doing it although it might have been my Uncle Ben. I had a pretty high estimation of him. He was one of those "self made man" kind of guys. So whoever it was who got me started, from about six or seven years old I was a whistler. As the years of whistling slipped bye I developed a whistling reputation. I enjoyed it, I did a lot of it, and all that practice developed some skills as a whistler that other people recognized and appreciated. They told me so! (Although I think some people secretly wanted to shut me up....BTW...have you seen a puppy try to whistle?).

I was also a trumpet player. I've met a bunch of them through the years. (But nobody like the young man in this video.) I started playing in the sixth grade and then played throughout junior high and high school. I was a pretty good trumpeter, too. I took private lessons for a while--off and on. I was generally first or "second chair" in the band. (I never felt I had had the time to play in the orchestra but I gave the jazz band some serious thought.) Then I thought about playing when I went to college. But I decided my engineering classes demanded more time than I could spare if I was in the band and trying to study for the applied science and engineering classes. It took a lot of practice to get good and stay good, and if I was going to do it I wanted to be one of the best.

I can still whistle. I can probably still "play" the trumpet, too. (Nobody would want to hear me.) It's interesting how that works, because even though its been many years since I picked up a horn and gave it a serious buzz, there is a lot about it that still feels natural. My fingers can still do the scales and "read" the music even though I can't remember consciously how to do the fingerings--the fingers just "do" it--they somehow know.

As a general rule we get good at what we practice. It gradually becomes part of us. In the case of things we want to get good at it's a good thing. But practicing can also be compromising. As a sophomore in high school I had a good friend, (I'll call him) Ted. Ted and I had grown up in the same neighborhood. He lived half a block from my house. We spent many hours together. Fun in the neighborhood, birthday parties, classes at school, Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts, summer baseball...you get the idea. The problem really started shortly after we were becoming men--blame it on testosterone? No. But it was about that boy becoming a man process and how Ted focused it's influence on him. Yah. He would spend hours looking at his dad's girlie magazines. Playboy was one of his favorites.

But I was of course a red-blooded, 98.6 degree Fahrenheit, Caucasian male, too. (I still am!) I enjoyed looking at those with him, but I became mildly concerned for Ted about the way he would create stories around those pictures. We'd be in his room and he'd start up, "Here's what I would do if I met her in the hallway, or if she came to my room at night..." Then he would rehearse a very elaborate scenario, obviously well-practiced, and he'd unflinchingly act it out detail by small detail. He had many of these. They were little "one man vignettes" each with a bucket full of scintillating plots and scenes carefully choreographed; all-male stuff reaching for and ending punctuated with orgasmic sexual fulfillment.

Long story short: I was uncomfortable! I don't remember what I said to Ted in those moments. I do remember finding excuses not to go over to his house when he'd call. Then months flew bye. Gradually we spent zero time together. As you might guess, by the time we were seniors at CHS we'd become "just good ole friends," old acquaintances. We had developed different sets of social connections and effectively walked out of each others lives.

I was in college at OSU when I heard the sad news that Ted was in trouble. He was messed up. A woman had charged him with sexual assault. All those uncomfortable experiences I'd had with him there in his house, all my discomfort, it all came flooding back from my memory banks. I realized how all that hungry sexual appetite and behavior Ted carefully, albeit tragically, trained had turned to devour him.

Since that time researchers have learned a lot more about the relationship between people's thinking, fantasy-behavior, and its impact on reality. It boils down to this: Practice makes perfect. Of course in reference to it's impact on Ted, a similar colloquial way of saying it is, "Garbage in, garbage out," or in a Biblical phrase, "You are what you think!" Ted was seduced by a hormonal buzz. He embraced it. Stupidly then, he dedicated himself to practice a way of being with women that ultimately he acted out--and maybe more than once before he found himself in trouble? Whatever, it didn't have to happen! It did.

Smarter Romance (SR) understands Ted's situation. In fact, SR exists, in part, because of my old friend--and so many other "Teds" just like him. SR recognizes and appreciates the mystery, frustrations, and the joy we all experience as Guys and Gals in daily male-female interaction. SR is about learning and practicing a healthy, fun, and character-developing set of disciplines that will serve your relationships for decades. So, whether you are 13, 31, or 81 "practice still makes perfect." So, here's the awkward question: "What are your dating expectations, and are you stupidly training any not-so-complimentary "secret" male-female behavior? If you are, what are you going to do about it?

Have fun, be safe, be smart.

My One-on-One with Creativity

I just came back inside. I've been cruising our yard in the late summer sun. I was out there in the side-yard of our house chasing an idea for an upcoming blog. As it turned out the idea ran just a little ahead of me (and I'm in pretty good shape!) as I worked tryin my best to capture it. I gave up and came inside...for now.

So I guess it's still out there (but maybe not in the yard any longer) since it tends to wander around a bit...all that "creative moment" stuff of course. Nevertheless, I'll catch and wrestle it into temporary submission soon. In the meantime I'm working at my "sneakin up" skills.

So while we're waiting (on the development of those skills) let's give this some thought: What's in your best interests...and how do you know? Do you think you have a good answer for those two simple questions?

Well, certainly you should wisely respond with something like, "Well, Dick, what are we talking about here? Physical fitness, financial security, family relationships, career development, eating habits, academic disciplines, lifestyle stuff...What?"

When it comes to the goals of this blog, I'm of course particularly interested to have you consider what you're doing in and with your dating life? It's a fact that what you are doing there has (absolute) implications for literally all of those other things! So how do you believe the stuff you do and think and expect in that interpersonal realm of your dating is in your personal best interests long-term?

I'll come back to that discussion, but unless it's already a well-worn thought path for you, I challenge you to take a leisurely jog along its distance. Follow it "through the woods" and then let me know what you're thinking and what you discover on the way? OK?

Have fun, be safe....and be smart!

Dick

Your Dating Experiences--A Snapshot of Your Integrity?!

Ok. So how do you really know yourself? Are you a person of integrity whose thoughts and commitments are based on something that is solid? Yes--No--What? Is there something that makes you confident, that makes you sure and secure about your personal integrity? Have you ever tested your integrity or found yourself in situations that help you know the "solid" something within you really is a dependable anchor? If that's the case then you know it's there and that it's going to be strong in the moments or seasons when temptation and compromise scream in your face, "Run! Cave-in. Fudge it." Then, again, maybe you've found yourself in those situations and come away feeling like a real Sh-muck?!

As I was discussing in the previous blog, we can have many distractions and a lot of stuff going on all around us, but if we've got a character anchor we can still be "solid" people. There's no doubt that we can be men and women of integrity regardless of the mesmerizing, toxic or corrosive messages all around us. We all know stories of men and women with real solid character who live or lived around us, near, or at some distance--"Tall" people. Smarter Romance, in part, is about developing those skills. It will help you design and build your interpersonal character in a way to anchor and then provide valuable support for your dating life in particular.

A Smarter Romance (SR) gives you a compass and some navigational tools. These can move you toward a confident relational future and, eventually, a solid marriage relationship. That's not magic. It's not something that "just happens some day to two people in love "... and who then walk happily ever after toward the setting sun." Not. Great dating experiences and, eventually, happy marriages are the direct results of good plans executed by people who gradually and skillfully made them a reality. That's pretty much the way it works, but these kinds skills spill many benefits into our lives in a variety of other ways, too.

If you're in the Denver area and you want to know more about SR--maybe you would like to attend a seminar, get more information in general, get your hands on the book, or set-up an informal dialogue with me, just drop me a note (email: smarterromance@gmail.com) or respond with a comment (see below). If you are out of state, but you would like to discuss similar options in your area, please do the same.

In the words of another, "I'll be back," and in the meantime, have fun, be safe, and be smart!

Man-ipulated and Woman-ipulated by "The Force"

If you're like me--I know that what I'm talking about here doesn't discriminate between us--you listen to the radio, you watch TV, and you're on the web. You've probably got a computer at home and some portion of it on you phone. You text mail, email, and probably Tweet, you've probably got a Facebook page (0r maybe a professional page like LinkedIn), you frequent U-Tube and you've got friends and relatives who speak some or all these "languages," too. In your circle of friends you keep each other updated, just like the vast majority of your neighbors and friends out there in what is fast becoming the universal communications loop.

It's great to have all these connections...and maybe a little crazy, too. Because of all these things, and because of the electronic/computer age in general, personal anonymity is very rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Some people think that's great. Other people find it a little scary. Still other people are working to manage it all...working to keep it from getting out of hand for themselves and others too.

If you visit the internet you are constantly bombarded with a visual feast of stimulating images, sounds, and auditory commands. You can't avoid it. Of course you experience the same thing if you watch the TV where you've got headers at the top of the screen crammed with information, the body of the screen focused on what, hopefully, you intended to watch, and there's that "footer" suddenly streaming information across the bottom of the screen about the weather or some other "urgent" breaking news. It's constant.

I enjoy listening to talk radio. But the radio, just like the other media, is crammed with both the things you wanted to hear--what you tuned in to hear--and all that interruption marketing and extraneous information you would prefer to do without. But alas, it's ALL there droning in your ears, as it were, an audio sandwich with that stuff you really want seasoned not so tastefully with ingredients you could care less about.

Whether you like it or not you are dramatically influenced by all those sights and sounds, images, arguments, persuasive efforts, and ideological propaganda. Unless you're an inanimate object, like piece of granite, this stuff touches you. It's there; it's a FORCE intended for "impact." At some level, whether you're aware of it or not, you're being man-ipulated! (OK. Woman-ipulated if you're a gal.) Information about a topic or about a person, whether that information is accurate or not, persuades. It influences a person's perception of that topic or of that person. That's why, for example, attack ads during a political campaign can be so potentially damaging. Half-truths, misplaced emphasis, innuendo...it can be damningly influential even after clarifying information has been provided to exonerate or reconcile listeners or viewers to the truth.

I heard a news story yesterday reporting research that shows women have a greater attraction to men wearing the color red. Across the City of Denver men are suddenly dressing to wear more red. Whether the research is correct or not--it may be a funny hoax!--men are taking full advantage of the news. Maybe you're one of these guys? Admittedly, for me the idea did not go unnoticed.

OK. What's the "so what" of all this? Simply this: what's real? How do you know who you really are? How do you know what you stand for? What's enduring and what's not? How do you know it's not just all that manipulation tugging you this way or that, making you want this, shaping your perspective? How do you know? What you think about dating, romance, the opposite sex, relationships, marriage...where and how did you learn to "think" it? Is the way you think it in your best interests? What makes you sure?

I'll be back. Until then have fun. Be safe. Be smart.

Dick

Decisive independence: You got it? How do you know?

I've spent the past bunch of years working in and around the college crowd. Student friends, colleagues, teammates and competitors have filled my daily experiences. Mentoring young men and women, teaching, supporting and counseling young adult couples, career planning and professional development, leadership and spiritual formations are some of the ongoing themes in our shared time, interactions, and discussion. Rarely have I found these men and women wanting to be told who to be, how to act, what to like or what to pursue, when or how fast.

OK. Let me tell you a little story...

When I was a young teen a friend, Steve, and I enjoyed "running" his small boat up and down the Alsea River near the Oregon coast. The boat was powered by a portable Evinrude gasoline engine. As a general rule moving down the river toward Waldport, where the Alsea emptied into the Pacific Ocean, was always easier for the motor whether the tide was coming in or going out. That being said, it was dramatically more challenging for that little motor when the tide had been in (up), had just previously changed direction, and was now rapidly on its way back out toward the open sea!

When that happened all the river and ocean water previously forced up the stream by the advancing tide was "stacked" upriver for several miles. So when the tide had now clearly changed directions there was little to keep it from racing back toward the mouth of the river to escape into the bay. If Steve and I were in his little boat heading up the river just after the tide had changed, that little motor was working to push us, in that little boat, "uphill" against all that water now rushing back toward the bay and the open ocean.

Along the river's bank there were a lot of broken down and rotted docks, old moorings, some channel markers, and related river debris somehow fixed to the river bed deep below the water line. We'd pass these artifacts and structures on our way up or down the river.

On one of my first outings with Steve I remember how interesting it was to come upon a tightly anchored channel buoy. It was bobbing violently against an outgoing tide as we slowly chugged upstream against the same current to pass it. At that time I observed how by looking just at that "protesting" buoy, and if I had not known better, it would have been easy to conclude the buoy was in the jaws of some powerful unseen fish who was dragging it mercilessly and rapidly upstream! But because I knew we were moving (thanks to our busy little Evinrude) and I could assess our progress, albeit slow, by scanning the distant stationary river bank, I knew this buoy was "fixed" even though it appeared to be moving rapidly upriver against the current.

Think with me about that little cameo in time. Two things in that situation kept us properly oriented to what was actually going on there: 1) we could hear the motor, and 2) we could scan the distant river bank to see we were making progress against an outgoing tide. But consider what our conclusion could have been (potentially disorienting?) had we been unable to hear the motor or (for whatever reason) we were unable to see the distant shore?

We could suspect the only consistently stubborn and illogical age group we'll come across are two year-old children. O.K., humor aside, I know that's a really dangerous combination--stubborn and illogical. Beyond infancy and early childhood, most thinking people don't find themselves being really stubborn and really illogical (at the same time) unless they are or were blinded by some form of intense emotional or psychological trauma. But as we all know it doesn't mean people can't be fooled--that is, for example, confused into thinking their getting one thing they want when they're actually getting something they don't want. Of course, Smarter Romance is all about trying to help people avoid the disappointment of such situations.

I made a statement in my last blog about the intensely manipulative nature of today's society. It's true (and we'll consider some of those things in the next blog). So, how does one avoid manipulation? Perhaps by knowing one's self, knowing facts, being aware of one's surroundings (hearing the hummm of the Evinrude), keeping a fresh perspective, having or keeping some dependable "anchor" or reference points ("the river bank"), being accountable to others, having a vital support network, etc.

When a person is young (or maybe just in a new relationship) you want to think your charting a course, making decisions, doing things that will be in your best interests. How do you know? Do you have an evaluative criteria? OK, so you make a decision to do something. How do you know you made it? Maybe you were influenced by something or someone else at the time?

Smarter Romance is about helping people initiate, grow, and enjoy healthy cross-gender relationships. As I said before, rarely have I found men and women wanting to be told who to be, how to act, what to like or what to pursue, when or how fast. So the challenge to me is that of helping you make your choices as free from coercive influences (mine or your other influences) as might be possible. I appreciate it when you help me help you around that stuff--and SR will help you do the rest.

Until next time. Be safe, have fun, and above all be smart.

Dick

Who's really treating you like a little kid?

In a previous blog entry (April 22) I posed this little scenario: Let's pretend I hand you a little book to read--say it's only ten pages long. As I hand it to you I tell you that reading it will bring about one of the most normal, pleasant, and potentially gratifying experiences you will ever experience in your entire life. I also emphasize that it's a story you are supposed to prepare for, anticipate, and get excited about for your future. However, I similarly warn you how that if you choose to read the little book now, so you can experience the tale's pleasant affects now, at this time in your life, it will undoubtedly mean you won't be able to experience the level of satisfaction you could have had. It will also mean, if you read it now, that you won't be able to replicate and prolong the level of satisfaction you do experience in the way you would have had you waited. OK. So, what will you do with the book?

You're probably thinking about how obviously transparent that little story sounds? Am I right? And that line of thinking may, in turn, lead you to wonder if I'm thinking of you as a little five-year old child struggling to save your Christmas candy cane. Seriously, no, that's not my intent because if that's true then we're all "little kids." We all struggle with temptations like this.

So I can affirm to you that we're all candidates for this kind of temptation. Whether it is the explosion of a minty Christmas candy cane on our tongue's taste buds or the release endorphins to the pleasure centers of our brain; we're all potential targets.

Targets? If you pose my scenario to your friends and neighbors most all of them would probably report their desire to wait--although you would get some discussion. It's a fun scenario posing a relatively tough situation. I think everyone would agree, too, that some people find resisting temptations like these harder than do other people. That's the way life and people work.

But all-in-all here's where I'm going with this: we've never lived in a societal environment that is more manipulated than the one we're presently living in. That's a fact! And how does that fact play into this discussion and what are it's implications for dating and romance--and you? Give it some consideration and we'll continue this discussion in the next blog entry.

In the meantime be safe, have fun, and be smart!

Dick