I wonder what it is about dating that makes us all stupid. I am probably the smartest dater I know, and I currently feel like I’m shooting blanks. Pardon the verbiage. We are so tied up in our stuff, or in other people’s stuff, that we can’t figure out which is which. I finally feel like I got to the bottom of some issues tonight sitting around at home. I know, why am I not out on a Saturday night? Well, I didn’t have anyone worth giving Saturday night to, that’s mostly it. After the debacle that was my New Year’s Eve date, I have definitely established that it is worth parsing out my prime social time, even if it means spending that time alone. I’ll tell you more about the debacle later. It wasn’t how you would have thought. It actually involved no drinking (W?), no kissing (WTH?), and being abandoned in 10-degree cold at the bus stop downtown in the dark (WTF?). Yes really, and yes this was an attractive, humble person with a good job who was attracted to me as well and whose profile you never would have guessed such behavior from. But there you have it anyway…”serious about a real relationship” my ass. I can either decide every man is like him and never take another risk, or I can be surprised once in a blue moon with how ridiculous one guy is and keep going and assume the human race is not a bunch of assholes. I choose the latter.

But I digress. What I was getting at is I was talking to a bunch of people about why I find dating so confusing lately, and writing about it to figure it out, and I think the issue is primarily the important recipe dating requires – and that relationships require – between empathy and sympathy. Most of us utilize one or the other or neither. Empathy of course is feeling what other people feel, or at least having an awareness that other people have feelings. Often those of us who are empathetic fail to remember that others may have different feelings than we would have in the same circumstances, or we fail to keep our own bleeding hearts intact and the boundaries between what we feel for others in their life dramas and what they feel have very little mediation between them. Not surprisingly, women are culturally trained to do this, both to weaken us and to support tenets of civilization without which we would spiral into utter chaos. This does not mean, of course, that men couldn’t be empathetic, or are any less naturally sensitive, or that every woman is giftedly empathetic herself. Far from it. But there remains the social construct for now.

Sympathy on the other hand is an entirely different animal. I am the daughter and former partner of two different sympaths. Sympaths hear what you are going through and feel bad about it, but the inner dynamics of what you are dealing with are foreign to them. Your experiences will never be theirs; they simply don’t have that type of integrative ability and every experience you have, regardless of how close it is to something they have gone through, will seem fresh and new to them. The best sympaths are curious and compassionate, use their sympathy to stretch and make their worlds bigger, and appreciate you for bringing it to them. The best empaths learn to use their integrative abilities to bring people together without destroying their own selves in the process.

So dating and relationships seem to be that delicate dance. It is one part giving people what we would want in order to feel loved, partly because that’s how we know to love and partly so we stay aware that relationships are largely about learning that love is a verb and we love by doing. And the second part of the dance is learning what people need that is totally different from what we need, and trusting that even though it’s different from us, we can stretch ourselves to love them the way they need to be loved, without taking on that difference as a threat to our own love languages. Sometimes this is easy and an awesome, exhilarating adventure, and other times it’s terrifying.

Personal preference for adventure comes into play here too. My NYE date was not an adventurer, for instance. He was committed to being unhappy, as it turned out, and so every time I brought up something exciting or positive or exploratory, he would shut down. It was important to his way of life not to do anything new. That was his safe space. I dated this other guy for a few weeks, with whom I had loads of relational and philosophical and professional stuff in common. And after awhile he really opened up online and gave me some nice compliments that were a bit more forward than he had felt comfortable (or than would have been appropriate) when we first met. But then when we got in the same room again, an onlooker would have thought we were in a business meeting. He was totally ecstatic inside that I we were out together, but he didn’t give me any of that on the outside. So he was complimentary, enthusiastic, open, talkative, etc. on line, and offline he was as skittish as a cockroach near a shoe. After date #2 it was clear he was not going to get any more open, and yet he had made passes at me online. Nice ones, but still definitely passes that should be followed up. And yet, after date #2, he emailed me a glowing report of how good a time he had. Well, my love language is having someone light up when I come in the room. I’m pretty damn fun and charismatic and welcoming, and I work hard to make sure the people around me feel like they’re the most important people in a room. This is no doubt why I get asked out a lot, and why I get asked out again a lot, even by people I have nothing in common with. I make people feel like rock stars. But I told him you can’t treat me that openly online and then treat me that reservedly in person and expect me to know you are totally turned on or excited to see me or whatever. I’m only going to live like 55 more years or something and I don’t have that long to wait for you to work up your nerve to smile at me. That’s my love language. I have like a million of them, but that’s one I won’t put up with missing out on. If I’m going to make someone else feel special, I expect the same in return. Life is too short to not be excited and not show people you care about them if you do.

In other news, I just stopped seeing a cook. It didn’t quite work; we took it a bit too fast, it’s as simple as that. I don’t know if it would have worked long-term, but I bet we would have dated a while and then become friends. Maybe we still will be. We slept together a little soon. I didn’t realize he hadn’t been with anyone in a while, honestly, not that I would have in the tiny amount of time it took us to get into bed together. But the thing is cooks are UHMAZING lovers. If you ever have opportunity to sleep with one of us, be sure to take advantage of it. All the skills you need to be a good lover are the same ones you need to be a good cook. Hand strength, sensuality, enjoyment of colors and textures and things in your mouth, stamina, and a strong creative drive. All good things in bed. We did have an outstanding time, and thank god we were a bit better fit physically than the last person I slept with, who was an amazing lover and would do anything I asked but who didn’t have the presence or the stamina of this one. Some people are spirit-focused, and some are body-focused somehow. I am more spirit-focused but my spirit channels physically during sex so it works out really (really :o)) well. But my last partner was too depleted in spirit and therefore really at a disadvantage sexually in a lot of ways. This newer guy is less experienced but stronger and more physically focused (and nice biceps and tattoos too by the way, yummy). Not so spiritual but a pretty gentle person anyway, and not in any of the inconvenient ways. But good sex will always come again, and maybe we’ll be friends or business partners at some point. That’s cool too. You never know what life will offer. If you find out, though, do let me know.