Pittsburgh Internet Dating Stories

My older brother, who dated steadily from the age of 18 until he married finally at 44, sent me this video. Helen Fisher asked herself why we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for it?

One thing she concludes is that our brain systems are designed to keep the human race going, not to make us happy. Since we feel lust for many people, romantic love is a brain system designed to focus our attention on one person. Focusing on one person allows us to settle down and have children with them.

The third brain system is long-term attachment, which is designed to keep us together long enough to raise our children.

But I don’t say it nearly as well as Helen:

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Just what goes on Sundays at your place?
If I meet a hot guy…here’s the average Sunday…morning sex…coffee…sex…shopping…dinner with the family…see a movie…wine…night sex. But that’s sunday, not everyday can be sex 3x’s a day, just sundays…well okay saturday’s too!

Job: medical/dental
Which virtues give you most of your self confidence?
The fact that I could write a prescription that would render you unconscious. (Just Kidding)

If you could ‘Do Lunch’ with anyone, who would it be?
That’s an easy one, Osama Bin Laden. That way when he wasn’t looking I could put a triple dose of anthrax in his food and that terrorist moron would ‘drop dead’!!

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I think if I could change something about myself it would be to never have did so much LSD in the 60s, no, wait I was born in the 70s-nevermind….

Someone may want to say “hello”, but not know how to get the ball rolling.
WELL, THEY COULD ALWAYS COMMENT ON MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR, MY BEAUTIFUL BROWN EYES, MY FLAWLESS SKIN, MY BODY BEAUTIFUL…

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“The man with the clear head is the man who … looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. As this is the simple truth – that to live is to feel oneself lost – he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. … He who does not really feel himself lost, is lost without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality.”~ Ortega y Gasset

I read “Revolt of the Masses” by Ortega y Gasset as a freshman in college, over 25 years ago, but I always remembered his analogy of the “shipwrecked man.” The last 2 years, since my divorce after 20 years of marriage, I’ve really identified with it.

I had been secure in a comfortable, if unhappy, marriage and Mt. Lebanon suburban life. I thought I had the answers, and if I followed the rules, things would turn out okay. When they did not, and I found myself bobbing in the open water, looking for something to cling to for support, and I was willing to try anything.

It’s been a interesting ride. I’ve read Martha Beck, Eckhart Tolle, Joan Borysenko and Henri Nouwen, and  many more. I did the Landmark Forum, the Advanced Course, and am taking Landmark’s “Sex and Intimacy” seminar. I did a coaching series with a holistic nutritionist, started monthly massages, and tried yoga. I am seeing both a psychotherapist and a “healer.”

I’m not sure where it’s all going to lead, but I am hoping I’ll gain a little self-awareness. I was able to “keep it together” for a long time, but only because I had crammed myself in a tight little box. Now that my mind is starting to open, I am also starting to see my own culpability – I’m not and have not always been the good, honest, loving person I thought I was. I see I am capable of horrible meanness, cowardly behavior, and spinelessness.

Frankly, it’s been a shock. Yesterday, in my therapist’s office I took a hard look at myself and cried, “What kind of person would do such a thing?” He said my guilt was good. If I was evil, I would be justifying and rationalizing my behavior. Feeling bad was a clue that I was also good.

I’m hoping he’s right.

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