Meditation for January 7th
Red Flags
We live in an age where the information and ideals needed before the first date are astronomical. If we listen to the love song of yesteryear, we hear that people fell in love without even knowing the person’s name. They fell in love on yearning alone. Now we have online apps that use tech criteria to help us find the perfect mate. We won’t fall in love unless that person checks 378 boxes.
We fear heartbreak before we even go on the first date. We want all the intelligence there is before we are sitting at a bar nervously looking around to see if they are there yet. It’s like the idea that while dating someone is considered a success, breaking up is a sign of complete and utter failure.
Some look for red flags. They think that certain signs indicate the person isn’t a good dating prospect. Not long enough since their last relationship, a serial monogamist, not a sufficient monogamist, not in enough relationships, in too many relationships, dated too many people like me already, and any other kinds of clues from their past.
Basically, people want to date a virgin they don’t have to coach.
When you date someone with red flags, you are dating someone who isn’t a blank slate. What they say to you, treat you, make love to you is the accumulation of all their past lovers. People have a hard time with that. We want to be the most special person in a person’s life, erasing all their past romances.
Someone who isn’t that experienced is a blank slate. This person can be chiseled to match your ideals. Younger partners are great this way. Older people are stuck in their ways and can’t be taught new tricks.
Juliette is 13 when she falls in love with the 28-year-old Romeo. She falls for Romeo’s come-on, which he has sharpened over the decade and a half of experience he has gained. She doesn’t know any better because this is one of the first and best-looking guys to try anything.
People say they don’t want the responsibility of dating a virgin. They don’t like the kind of attachment that happens for a virgin and their first.
People want someone with one or two red flags, so they have some experience, but not so many that they are entirely unwilling to compromise, and not least because there is a responsibility and training needed.
Basically, no one should ever get into a relationship because no one has any fucking idea what they are doing. We live in a time where there is too much information on dating, but divorce is still rising.
The average American marriage lasts 4.5 years.
The only thing that works is working at it.
Prayer
Cupid,
Draw back your bow,
And let your arrow go,
Straight to my lover’s heart for me,
For me.
Cupid,
Please hear my cry,
I don’t want to try,
It’s too much work to work, so maybe instead of shooting a bunch of people with a lesser-powered arrow, so a lot of people are slightly in love with me, than one person is a lot in love with me. I can handle a bunch of people who are kinda into me, but one person who is really into me? That is too much, so let’s make a bunch of likes instead of love.
Thank you, Cupid.
Craft
Know your monogamous animals. In order of monogamy.
- Eurasian Beavers
- Wolves
- Gibbons
- Swans
- Sandhill Cranes
- Prairie Voles
- Bald Eagles
- Humans
So, despite what the college kids who think humans are polyamorous say, we are the 8th most monogamous creature on earth. That means we are the 8th most monogamous animal out of 2.16 million.
Goal
Red Flags and other “rules” are just the tools of those scared of intimacy.
Love it!