Vital signs

You know that awkward moment when you know someone wants to kiss you, but you really haven't opened that door? Unfortunately, the puckering 'they' thinks the door is open. When the best thing they could do is knock first... or ask if they could come in.

Remember me?

Have you ever found yourself witnessing someone's soliloquy about themselves? Is that a red flag for a potential suitor...?

And, the survey says... heck yes.

Ridden with

Have you ever been in a relationship wrought with the big J: jealousy? Maybe you're in one now.

Jealousy is a big. red. flag. for many reasons. The main issue is insecurity, which is another red flag when not handled properly or used as a lesson for growth and letting go. As the non-jealous partner, it's your job to tactfully realize this unhealthy force before the healthy dynamic of your relationship spirals into a murky vortex. But, that often means a big shout out to your partner to do some deep inner work (i.e. "Holla, homeslice. But your insecurities are. not. my. issue. yo. Can you work on that, please?")

As Nikki would say: Jealousy is the symptom of non-relationship.

Avoiding safe & unoriginal, ...or something else

"I'm looking for something different"

This seemed to be the central thought of his trip. Escaping from the humdrum and perhaps confusion of a life without goals, he decided to play roulette and choose a travel destination for a one-week trip to clear his thoughts.

Portugal was the winner, planned on the spur of the moment, as trips to Portugal often seem to be. He enjoyed his first two days alone, until a French couple looked at him incredulously and remarked, "You're traveling alone?! No boyfriend, no girlfriend? Too bad!" Only then did he start to feel lonely.

Until he was walking along, recently off the train and consulting his thin paper map of Tomar, and a young woman waved and shouted from afar, "Hi! Do you speak English?" Her big smile took him off guard and he said, "Yes..." She turned out to bethe third woman he'd met while traveling who was working on her thesis. "Why do I meet all these intelligent women while traveling?" he asked her, with a touch of frustration and a smattering of irony.

"Because intelligent women tend to travel more, I think," she replied, somewhat coyly.

They spent the day walking and having good conversation, as he explained his current life dilemma. "I've worked for so manyyears, but still don't know what I want to do!" All he knows is he does not want to follow the monkeys. If everyone is going to see a monument or landmark, he does not want to follow them there.

His travel partner's only and best advice for the day was this: "Just because the monkeys are going somewhere doesn't mean that you should not."

Maybe a life lived avoiding the beaten path just for the sake of avoiding is just another way of not having to make your own decisions.

After finally achieving the goal of gifting her with a fresh delicious orange, partaking in new and delicious pastries, and carrying home one for the road, he hugged her at the train station. "Thank you so much," he murmured. He watched her run to her train, wondering what would have happened if his coin had landed with the other side up.

by Nikki

The art & ritual of courtship

"It's not just about having sex with her"

"What other European men don't realize," he explained, "is that women want to be courted. You must conquer a woman, in every way. You have to create a spark in her eye. A woman is sacred."

While I didn't agree with all of his reasoning, something about what he said struck a chord in me. In my previous relationships I admit we have gone very quickly to the sexual phase. After a very short exciting period of "does he like me?"and the adrenaline of not knowing, but hoping, sexual relationship seals the pact.

Nevertheless, these supposed pacts were very easily dissipated once things went wrong. Eventually I always realized I had made an incorrect decision, chosen poorly. At that point I realized I had never really attached to the person, and breaking the relationship was very easy. The message that I began to formulate and process with this new conversation was that my mistake has always been that I am conquered far too quickly and easily. I must slow down, must allow myself to attach to a person through good conversation, shared moments and memories, smiles and, yes, even that frustration and nervousness of unrequited hormones. Perhaps then both of us will be sure to choose wisely.

Maybe a woman should wait, should demand that her relationship with a new man build and grow until she has a spark in her eye that is not born solely of sexual attraction. Maybe this is not an issue only for "other European men," but for men and women around the modern world.

What would it feel like to be "courted"? Have American men lost that art? Did they ever master it?

by Nikki W