Act 8 – January

 

I woke up on New Year’s Day feeling the way you should after you drink too much and pass out on the floor. The cold sunlight in my eyes said my pity party was over and it was again time to deal with the things I ought to be doing. Like fixing up my house - and maybe fixing up my life.

I started to think about how I wanted my life to look. Going to Turlock hadn’t taken me all the way back to rock bottom – but close enough to where I could see it from there. I began thinking more and more about Loretta – and about the feelings I was having for her.

I was having a great time hanging out with her. Sure we’d slept together and I got a little weird – but so what? That’s not a capital offense – it’s more the kind of thing that happens when two people who are attracted to each other act on their attraction. So why was I being all skittish about it? I don’t know, maybe I was starting to take deeper breaths and settle down a bit, but I began having these cool little thoughts – glimpses really – about how my life could possibly look.

Loretta was a woman – and a good one. And that’s what my life was missing. I know, that sounds funny coming from a guy who knew as many girls as I did. But here’s the point I’m trying to make:

I was starting to think ‘woman’ vs. ‘women’.

What if I had a woman who met all my needs who was safe enough that I didn’t have to worry about getting close? What if there was one who caused me to think about just her? One who made it so I didn’t want to devote mental real estate to other women? I’ll be honest with you here – it had been a long time since I’d met a girl who had that effect on me – especially in a healthy way. So long, in fact, I may not have remembered how important that sort of thinking is - or even how you begin to act on it.

But even though it felt like new territory – I think I knew where to go.

After Loretta got back home from visiting her family, and I got back from Turlock, I called her and pretty much invited myself over. When I got there we were both in a good mood - lighthearted and playful. We were at a cool new place where we felt comfortable and connected, and where we felt safe. Like the other one cared, and was looking out for ‘us’ and not just ‘me’, you know?

We started our day by playing tennis – and when we came back to the house, all hot and sweaty, I asked if I could use her shower.

At Loretta’s house you can see the guest shower door from the kitchen – which is where she was, making us lunch. And if someone is in the kitchen and another someone leaves the bathroom door open, then it’s pretty clear he wants to be seen naked.

Which is what I did.

After I got out of the shower I knew I’d have a hard time hiding my feelings for Loretta – so I decided to call attention to them when I called out to her so that she’d look right at me.

When she looked at me she smiled with a ‘what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-doing’ gleam in her eye. And then - timidly - she also said “I thought we weren’t going there again”.

I smiled back and said “You have to strike while the iron is hot or, in this case, hard.” And that turned her smile into a laugh.

What came next did not end until the following morning. And that next morning was kind of cool. We’d just been intimate for the second time, but this time I didn’t get weird. It was all just sort of natural and sweet.

And so we started hanging out. Well, I would call it ‘hanging out’, but she would probably have referred to it as ‘dating’ – as women tend to do. We guys see a big difference between ‘hanging out with a girl’ and ‘dating a girl’. If we’re ‘hanging out’ we still have our freedom - so things feel casual and comfortable. The term ‘dating’, for us, proceeds other terms like ‘engagement’ and ‘wedding limo’.

No matter what you would call it though I have to add this: The day I came out of the shower was the romantic start of me and her, of ‘us’.

Hanging out was fun, and was going well, but I still had a pressing matter at hand. Though I’d gone to Turlock to prepare my house for renters, I ended up doing a whole lot of nothing there. And I was hesitant to tell Loretta that – but I figured what the hell, I’d told her almost everything else about me, so why not come clean about how down I can get?

When I mentioned all this to her she said she loved doing work like that and would certainly go with me to help, so we traveled down there and set up camp in the big empty house and got to work. By day we painted walls and cleaned counters and stained floors – talking and laughing all the while.

At night we’d set our chairs in front of the fire and drink wine, listen to music and tell each other who we were. I don’t mean in the narrative sense, but more in that way you tell someone who you are by showing them. You share those intimate stories you never really tell to someone – unless it’s the right someone.

In my mind that was when I really started to ‘get’ her. I don’t know if it was because I was away from other distractions, but I really began to appreciate just how good she was to me - and maybe for me.

The word I’d use for how Loretta was beginning to feel is ‘tender’. The role she was playing in my life was getting bigger. I was starting to depend on her… which is, of course, when the trouble started.

I began to get this crazy feeling like maybe she wanted something from me – what thing she wanted I can’t really say. In fact I’m not sure there even was a specific thing; it was more like a vague feeling that, because I was coming to rely on her, I was somehow making a mistake.

Well those are the words that occur to me now to describe the feeling, but at the time there were no words, only a hazy sense of unease. Like there was something wrong, even if I couldn’t say what that something was.

As good as Loretta was being to me I somehow felt a risk – somewhere inside me an alarm went off. An alarm that said back up John, this feels too much like what happened before – too much like that time you got married and hung your whole world on just one woman – and remember what that got you.

So a few days after Loretta and I got back home I set up a couple dates, with other women, online.

Please understand that last sentence makes no more sense to me now than it does to you – but at the time that was how I thought.

You remember back in the preface of this book when I said sometimes guys distract themselves away from things they need to work on? And how we can use women as that distraction? Well by this point I’d probably become one of California’s top offenders in the category. If there was a most wanted list for seeing women when you should instead be working on yourself, I would’ve had a price on my head.

I sent some emails, lined up a couple dates, and got busy distracting myself from the one woman I should’ve been focused on. After one of those dates I met Loretta at our coffee shop to go over lease forms for my rental and as we sat at a table deciding who was best to rent to, my phone buzzed with a text message.  I looked at it and saw that it was from a woman I’d gone out with the day before.

My demeanor changed instantly – and Loretta caught it.

The easy conversation we’d been having stopped being easy as it became clear there was now a new topic. Loretta saw the text, and the name of the woman it was from – and, not being shy, asked who she was. I said she was someone I’d met online and that we’d gone out. To say it was an awkward conversation is an understatement.

I told the woman sitting in front of me all about the other woman I’d just gone out with. I had this habit of being quite frank with Loretta – of telling her things I wouldn’t confide in other women in my life. And ‘confide’ is the operative word here. I’d made her a confidant – I think because we started out with a friendship. And because she was my friend and confidant I would tell her things without first thinking about how they might affect her – I guess as I would with a guy friend.

But she had feelings for me. And I had them for her – and I wanted to, in some way, make her feel like she was special to me. I was moving toward Loretta in a way that, I think deep down, I understood could be life changing.

But I was also still struggling.

Lucky for me Loretta could see that despite my struggles, I was still moving forward – and even better than I she may have been able to see that I needed to struggle in order to reach a place where I’d be ready for her.

But she also knew I may never make it.

And I think she was allowing for either eventuality. If things worked out romantically with me – great. If not, well that was okay too. And really, that’s how you have to play it. Either way we were going to be in each other’s lives – that much was clear.

I think it was up to me at this point whether that was going to be as friends, or as what we were beginning to think we had the potential to be.

So like one of those old songs from the ‘70’s that say “Hang on loosely, but don’t let go” she gave me the space to do what I felt I needed to do. But while she was okay with me meeting other women (probably from that feeling of confidence that comes from knowing I’d never do better than her) she was also very clear on the topic of intimacy: It was just for us.

And if I couldn’t respect that then we could only ever be just friends.

I think, in a way, she made a deal with me: If I could hold up my end of the bargain, I’d be showing that I was the guy for her.

But what if I couldn’t?

 

Column 27 - What to Expect From Expectations

(I write this week that online dating sites are useful and fun – which they totally can be – but there’s a time and a place for them.

And this is currently not the time for them in my life.

Yet I’m on them anyway.

I can’t see this turning out well…).

 

Have you ever been disappointed by something that didn’t turn out as you expected?

One day when I was eight years old my mom told the family that we should expect a very special visitor later in the evening. It was still a week or so until Christmas so that ruled out Santa Claus, who had been the focus of my nearly every waking thought for quite some time. My brother and sister and I were excited because Mom never made such announcements. We were also a little confused because, well, Mom never made such announcements.

As the hours went by our anticipation grew – and when the knock on the front door finally came we could hardly stand the suspense of who might be on the other side. Mom opened the door and who walked through but old Santa himself. We kids came unglued.

The next half hour was amazing – we all sat on Santa’s lap and whispered to him our deepest desires for the toys of our dreams. When it came time for him to leave we begged that he stay, but he said he must go as he had much work yet to do. When I asked if I could please follow him out and see his sleigh he said what I should do instead was go straight to sleep and dream of the big day to come. Sleep? I couldn’t even sit still, how would I sleep? I snuck to one of the front windows to spy Santa’s airborne departure only to have my Christmassy bubble burst as old Saint Nick climbed into a VW Bug and sputtered off down the street.

After that it wasn’t that I no longer believed in Santa Claus – I just maybe didn’t believe in quite the same way. But here’s a good thing about Christmas: It only comes once a year. No matter how hectic or trying the previous Christmas may have been the passage of 12 months helps us to get the spirit back. Leaving something alone for a period of time before coming back to it can be a very cathartic.

Last week I wrote that if the dating sites have become a grind for you - more work than reward - then maybe it’s best to leave them alone for a while. That’s good advice, but it’s not the whole story. I think the key to leaving something alone that, at first, seemed like a good idea is to work towards making it a good idea again. That way, when you return to it, if you’re going to return to it, you’ll have corrected the things that led to your disillusionment last time around. 

Here are some steps that should help you in that process:

First, when you get off the dating sites, go retro. Relearn the lost art of finding dates face to face. Go to places where guys are, be those sports bars, car shows, Home Depot or even just the local coffee shop; and practice making eye contact. Put your phone down and have a look around you – see who’s there. Be present where you are and you might be surprised at who you see. And when you see a guy you like, let him know it. The biggest stumbling block for us guys is when we think you’re unapproachable – if you’ve got your face buried in Facebook or your phone rivals your earrings for time spent on the side of your head, we don’t have a chance to get your attention. But if you’re looking around, smiling openly and making eye contact with us, those are cues that will help us get up the courage to come say hi.

And once we do you may end up with no further need for a dating site.

Second, learn not to take things personally. Those occasional creepy or overly persistent emails you received when on the dating sites? Believe it or not they were not meant personally for you. After all, the sender didn’t know you – how could he? Those messages are a reflection of who he is, not who you are. So let them roll off your back just as you would getting cut off in traffic. If you can learn to apply this strategy in your life and especially to your time on the dating sites, you’ll come to experience far lower levels of stress. You’ll be able to see more clearly what things are important and worthy of your attention and what things are, as a friend of mine likes to say, just bumps in the road.

Third, if and when you eventually do come back to the sites do so with a game plan that looks something like this: create a profile with lots of pictures that show you smiling and enjoying life. Make the things you write about yourself upbeat and playful while being sure to describe clearly who you are – but be brief, if it’s a big block of text our eyes glaze over. And be clear with yourself about what and who you are looking for. Does that mean a specific list of his physical attributes or his minimum acceptable bank balance? No. What it does mean is know what type of person you get along best with. If you’re easy going maybe steer clear of the Type-A’s. If you’re outdoorsy and active maybe pass on the guy who lists his interests as video games, reading and stamp collecting.

And finally I’ll say this: online dating sites are useful and fun, but only as long as you don’t expect too much of them - they are still, at best, only a starting place. It’s our expectations of them that can get us in trouble. We get disappointed when the real story doesn’t match what we expected, but sometimes the real story is better than the one we expected.

It took a while, but eventually that little eight year old boy came to understand that Santa wasn’t standing outside the door, she was standing inside the door.

Column 28 - So You Found One, Now What?

(What I’m trying to point out here is that finding a good woman is not really the hard part.

Getting her to find the good guy in you is.

I’m in a bit of a jam right now – I want Loretta to see I’m a good guy, despite the fact I’m not actually being very good).

 

When my boys were young the oldest one, Connor, came to me one day and asked if we could get a dog. Connor always loved animals and he wanted a dog of his very own. At the time we were going to be in our condo for another year or so and didn’t really have the room for a pet, but I promised him that once we bought our own house we’d get a dog right away.

He didn’t say another word about it until the first day we were in our new home – at which point he shyly reminded me of my promise. Man did that kid have a memory. So I set out on a search to find us a dog. I went to all the pounds in the area and after looking for what seemed like forever I found a handsome blonde mixed-breed at the pound in San Martin, just south of San Jose. I came home, gathered up the boys and my wife, and took them back to meet my find. They loved him and he loved us. We learned that he’d been picked up on Watsonville Road so we decided to call him Watson. We signed the adoption papers and left to wait the required three day period before we could take him home.

Those three days went slowly, but once they’d passed I rushed back to pick up Watson. I parked outside the pound and went straight in to the pen where he lived – but he wasn’t there. After I made my way to the front desk to ask about him I was given the bad news – he’d died during the night.

I was crushed – more for Connor than anyone else. I decided to quickly restart my search without saying anything to the family and at the pound in Hollister, a few towns down the road, I found another dog. Only problem was this stray was jet black. Connor had bonded with the blonde dog and I was unsure how this little black dog would be received – surely the boys would know this wasn’t the dog they’d seen just a few days before.

When the day came to bring the new dog home I gathered him up and put him in the car – as I did I noticed a white marking on his chest I’d missed previously. It was in almost the perfect shape of a W. As I walked into the house with our new little dog the boys just lit up, Connor especially. If he noticed this was not the dog he’d picked he didn’t say a word. When I pointed out the W on his chest Connor said that stood for Watson. I think I’ve never seen such a deep and loving commitment happen before my eyes as I did that day Connor met his new best friend.

Here’s the funny thing about that search – what I thought was the hardest part, finding the right dog, was really only the beginning. The truly hard part was all the digging (in my newly planted yard) scratching (almost clean through the fence in some places) and chewing (Watson not only chewed through the dry wall in the garage but also ate an entire leather tennis shoe). Turned out finding the right one was only the start – making the relationship successful was where the real heavy lifting lay.

I get letters from time to time asking about that heavy lifting – asking what the right process is once you’ve found someone in order to make a relationship work. What I’m always careful to do is point out how truly different men and women are, and how we go about getting into relationships in very dissimilar ways.

Men bond slowly, and over time. Many women don’t understand this is the case because we can come on so strong at first. Women interpret that strong initial gesture of the man as a sign of early commitment and then can get confused when the man backs off. And boy do we back off. This coming toward you has a lot to do with our desire for you to know we want you. But then, after a while, we scare ourselves by thinking that this is ‘it’ – our last relationship, which means no more chasing and dating women. This can lead to the fear that maybe we’re moving too fast. And in part, we’re right, because of our tendency to go so fast at the start.

While men bond over time, women tend to bond quickly, and with intense feelings. At the beginning this strong bond matches the man’s actions because he was going fast himself. But when the man pulls back, as is so often the case, the woman is left out in front of the new relationship kind of on her own – and that’s a vulnerable place to be.

And here’s where things get really tricky: The woman is now feeling fears that she’s more into him than he is into her. The man is feeling his own fears that he’s gone too fast and needs to slow down. The different effects those fears have on men and women have derailed many budding relationships.

Here’s what happens: When women feel the fear they tend to react by pulling closer to the man. But when men feel the fear they tend to react by pulling away from the woman. The net effect? The man is looking for space just as the woman is looking to erase the space – not a recipe for success.

So what’s the solution?

Guys, give women your full attention. Understand that they may feel more invested in the relationship than you and, as such, feel they have more to lose. Be patient and allay those fears for her by checking in maybe a little more than feels comfortable at first - just to let her know you’re thinking about her.

And fully commit to the relationship.

I know we have the habit of telling ourselves we’re keeping our options open, but don’t do that. Fully engage – for it is only when you are totally present in the relationship that it’s got any real chance of working. That doesn’t guarantee that it will, but I promise you that if you aren’t totally present, you’re not really giving the relationship a chance.

Women, understand that men go fast then they go slow – so when the slow period comes be ready for it and give him a little space. That does not mean suppress your feelings (those wonderful feelings are a gift and should be enjoyed) just maybe don’t share all of them with your guy right away. Go ahead and tell your girlfriends how in love you are, but play it just a little bit more casual around him (oh, and that note pad where you write your first name followed by his last name over and over? Do not leave that out where he can see it).

Just remember that guys bond over time, and not as emotionally intensely as you do. Give him the space he needs to truly understand how wonderful you are. It can take us a while, but we do get there.

I’ve been heard to say that men are like dogs – and some people misunderstand that to be a put down. It’s not. We can learn from dogs, and we can learn from our commitment to them. If we’ll spend that sort of energy and patience on them, what do you say we try spending it on each other?

 

Column 29 - Maybe the Journey is the Destination

(By this point I’ve been back online for a bit.

And I know it’s wrong at pretty much every level.

I can hear myself in this column trying to talk me out of it.

And yet I’m continuing to use them…).

 

Did you ever do something that, though it may not have been the best option, was so appealing you had to try it?

When I was a younger man and getting out of the service I decided to drive my car cross-country in order to get back home to California.

I was stationed in Washington DC, about 3,000 miles from the San Francisco Bay Area I was returning to. I would be making the trip in a rickety little English sports car built in the early 60’s – a car which had seats that did not adjust, no radio, and a host of mechanical problems that surfaced on a  semi-regular basis.

That was in the days before GPS. That was also in the days before cell phones. What I was planning to do was set out cross country on a five day trip, along a route I’d never traversed, in a vehicle of questionable reliability.

I could hardly wait.

On the first day I made it to Tennessee, at which point the car’s distributor broke. This left me with a top speed of about 20 mph, so I traveled at that rate until I found a shop that could work on little foreign jobs.

They patched the car up and I set off again for the Golden State. With the top down most of the way and no radio to play I sang every song I knew, at the top of my lungs so I could hear myself over the wind, and reveled in the freedom one finds on an open, endless highway. Well until I got to Arizona anyway, at which point my little roadster decided it was rather tired of the open, endless highway and would rather rest in a mechanics bay for a spell.

I searched until I found this quirky import car mechanic. He was followed around by a bunch of kids – they watched his every move like he was some sort of engine technician oracle. He got my little car running again and said I’d be just fine - which I was for about another 250 miles.

So when I broke down again outside Brawley, CA I decided I’d had enough. No more relying on others to do my work for me. I pushed the car off to the side of the road, hitched my way into town, found a parts store, and bought what I needed. I then got my little sports car back on the road with my own two hands and drove it out to the coast and all the way home.

So while the ‘drive to California in a rickety old car’ option may not have been the best choice, it was what appealed to me at the time. I made that choice because it intrigued me. The same could be said of using online dating sites. They seem like such a good idea. I mean where else do you have the opportunity to meet so many potential mates? The bar? You’d better hurry while they’re still sober. The grocery store? I’m sorry but being stalked near the celery stalks just ain’t that romantic. The coffee shop? I suppose, but it’s the same group in there most days of the week; and many of those folks are married or in some way already spoken for.

So yes, at first blush the dating sites appear to be a great way to meet people whose purpose is like yours – to find someone they’ll click with. And I’ve written in this space before that the sites are a good way to see as many candidates as possible. But if I’m going to be absolutely honest I also have to say that dating sites, even though they may be the ‘new normal’, are also a little flawed - if not in concept then at least in the way that they are used.

I’ve heard so many frustrations from the women that write to me, all the way from guys who are pushy and overtly sexual in their emails (why can’t they just behave in that nice way they do when they’re in line with us at the grocery store?) to getting that creeped out feeling because the sites can come across as, well, voyeuristic. One woman who wrote in was bothered by the fact that men can capture her pictures from her profile and keep them, and there’s nothing she can do about it (save from not go on the sites in the first place).

Another critique I hear a lot is that the dating sites can feel a bit like a ‘playground for men’. Lots of women get the impression that us guys are just there to date as many girls as possible and are really not looking very hard for one to settle down with.

Here’s another one that I get a lot: Many women feel that their profiles on the dating sites are like so many pages in a catalog. And with millions of women in this country using the sites that catalog is considerably bigger than the one you used to get from Sears. So here these women are, one in a sea of many, hoping that a guy will slow down long enough to see who she is and maybe give her half a chance. Another challenge of the catalog format is this: What are you really learning about these people based on a few grainy little pictures and a handful of sentences that may, or may not, accurately reflect who they are?

Perhaps the most common frustration I hear from women about the dating sites is this one: It just doesn’t feel organic. It doesn’t feel natural or comfortable. Women are going out on dates with men they’ve never met, based on that little catalog-like entry. They’re hoping that somehow the divide between the make believe world of online dating and the real world of meeting face to face is going to be bridged in a way that makes them feel comfortable. But comfortable is often not what they end up feeling. So many times the date is awkward because the banter that potential Mr. Right was capable of in emails seems to elude him once he’s in front of a real, live girl. Or there’s no spark at all due to the fact that this guy is 10 years older and 20 pounds heavier than he looks in his pictures.

So what do we do? Scrap the sites and go back to the old method? If that was the answer I’d still be driving a rattle trap that broke down on alternate days of the week instead of the modern, reliable car I have now. But as much as I like the car I have now, I know there’s a better one in my future.

And likewise I think there are better online dating options just down the road - options that meld the slightly awkward current iteration of the sites with a healthy dose of how we used to meet each other – out in the real world.

So hang in there with what we’ve got now – but keep your eyes on the road, I think I see something new just up ahead.

 

Column 30 - Because You’re Good Enough, You’re Smart Enough, and Doggone it People Like You

(Since I got back online, Loretta did too – after all, turnabout is fair play, right?

And that led to renewed conversations about the sites.

We had a good talk about how dating sites were kind of like ladies night at a bar – the bar gets women to come, and that gets the men to come.

I think I should also have been telling her not to take my presence on them personally – because it really wasn’t meant that way).

 

I’m not half bad at reading and writing, so when I have the time one of the things I like to do is share those skills with others.

A few years back I was volunteering my time as a tutor with a library literacy program and one of the students I was assigned was Joe Angelo. Joe had grown up in a small village in Portugal. He was the eldest son in a poor fishing family and, as such, worked far more than he went to school. As a result he read on maybe a second grade level. His writing skills were even further behind.

When I first met with Joe I told him we’d start on whatever he most wanted help with. All the students needed literacy training, but I found that there was usually one thing that drove them to finally ask for some assistance - with Joe that thing was using a checkbook.

Joe told me that when he went into a store he had to hand his check over to his wife so that she could write it for him. Joe was a proud man and the need to rely on another for a task most of us take for granted troubled him deeply. Joe also had to rely on his wife to balance the checkbook. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, he did, but he felt that as the man and breadwinner keeping the finances in order was something he should to be able to do.

So that’s where we started.

To those of you who know how atrocious I am with money this will sound crazy, but I personally taught Joe Angelo how to figure out his starting balance, how to write checks, and how to then subtract those checks to get his new balance. It took about a month of practice to get him proficient – but once he was he seemed to take on a new sense of confidence. After that our schedules got a little busy and I didn’t meet with Joe for two or three weeks. When we did meet again I asked how things were going and was there anything new in his life.

He informed me that he had left his wife.

That news hit me kind of hard – mostly because I had apparently equipped Joe with the skills he needed in order to leave her. I was young at the time and married myself and the fact that I’d helped, however indirectly, to end a marriage was something I took personally. But after a while I wondered if what Joe had done was really just a reflection of who he was. Maybe it didn’t have that much to do with me at all.

I think maybe the only mistakes I’d really made were taking the situation too personally and too seriously.

I have a reader who is considering getting off of the dating site she uses for some of those very reasons. She takes it personally when an email she carefully crafts to be both witty and inviting goes unreturned. In addition to her I’ve heard from many women who express frustration with guys who are uncooperative, first dates that didn’t go as planned and second dates that never lead to a third.

Here’s what I think is much of the reason we get so frustrated with sites like Match.com, E Harmony, Plenty of Fish and OKCupid, etc.: We take them too seriously.

We sign up for these sites and fervently start our search for Mr. or Ms. Right. Why do we do that? Ladies, when you walk through the door of a bar are you looking for Mr. Right? Or are you looking to maybe find a nice guy who’ll buy you a drink and entertain you with some good conversation. If he’s half way handsome and can make you laugh, all the better. But typically you don’t walk into a bar with high expectations.

So why then hang all that pressure on yourself when perusing the profiles of a dating site?

Granted part of this pressure is caused by the sites themselves – they’re notorious for implying that you’ll find your partner within their archives. In their ads they’ll run pictures of happy couples in wedding attire – or they’ll interview the newlyweds who then gush about having found their soul mate online. But see that for what it is – anecdotes about a relatively small fraction of dating site users. Take your cues from the bars instead – they’re not promising you that you’ll find Mr. Right inside are they?

I’m betting that dating sites run those commercials for much the same reason that bars have ladies nights - to bring in the women who will, in turn, bring in the men. So if that’s the case then have some fun with it. Treat the sites like ladies night and engage in some banter – bat some eyes – get your flirt on – and enjoy your dang self.

Rather than raising the level of emotional investment in the dating sites above those of a bar (or coffee shop) bring that investment back in line with those other places. Still go ahead and make yourself emotionally available, for I feel that is how we best attract others to us, but start taking the whole process a lot less seriously - and a lot less personally.

There’s this great little piece of advice that I try to live by – I found it in a book called The Four Agreements – and it goes, in part, like this: “Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality.”

If things don’t go just as you’d imagined in an email exchange – let it go, there’ll be other emails. If a date ends up being a bore fest instead of the innuendo laden conversation you’d been hoping for, that’s okay – the next one will likely be better. And if a guy goes out with you on what seems like a couple good dates and then disappears – that’s alright too; something wasn’t right and better to find out after two dates then after ten. Don’t take what others do personally – it’s not meant personally. What others do is a reflection of who they are, not who you are – so stop taking credit for their actions.

The funniest thing happened a few weeks after I finished tutoring Joe Angelo. He called me and said he and his ex-wife would like to take me out to dinner in appreciation for all I’d done for them. I was stunned. Turns out they were mostly just friends who’d each been living under the strain of staying married for the sake of the other. I realized that night that I had far less to do with the actions of others than I have a habit of taking credit for.

And that was a very liberating feeling.

 

Column 31 - Agreements You Won’t Have to Run From

(When I wrote this one, things were rocky between Loretta and me.

She was frustrated with me.

I was a little frustrated with me too.

So I wrote about the ‘Four Agreements’ – in my head it was good advice for both of us.

And I probably needed to hear some good advice…).

 

Do you remember the 1984 Super Bowl?

That was the winter the Raiders played the Washington Redskins down in sunny Florida. I was in the service at that time and stationed in far less sunny Washington DC – home of the ‘Skins.

I grew up in the Bay Area and the Raiders were my team. In my neighborhood in Morgan Hill we kids loved the Raiders and they seemed to like us pretty good too. Well known Raiders like linebacker Phil Villapiano and wide receiver Freddy Biletnikoff would actually come to play in basketball fundraisers for our local Police Athletic League. I’m not one to use the saying ‘those were the days’ very often, but dang it, those were the days.

You can imagine how hard it was for a dyed in the wool Raiders fan to be in DC in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. The fight song “Hail to the Redskins” seemed to be on every juke box in town, and was getting played more than “Take This Job and Shove It” after quittin’ time in a honkytonk.

My buddy Dave Clancy, also not a Redskins fan, was as fed up as I with the ‘Skins bandwagon everyone was jumping on. So one night over a few beers we agreed on a plan to make our stand for Oakland.

We were going to change the base movie theater marquee to read “Go Raiders”.

I don’t now remember what movie was listed up there but whatever it was there were sufficient letters with which to form our rebellious statement. After waiting for dark to fall and climbing onto the marquee it only took us about 15 minutes to pull down the letters and rearrange them into our insurgent message.

Apparently 15 minutes was also all it took for the base police to learn of our malfeasance and speed their way to the theater parking lot. As Dave and I finished spelling out the last of “Go Raiders” two cop cars pulled up just below the marquee and shined their spotlights up at us.

Dave and I quickly agreed on another (expletive-laden) plan and took off running – him in one direction and me in the other – straight off the marquee. That thing must’ve been 10 feet in the air but neither of us missed a stride as we sprinted off either side and ran in separate directions so that we’d be harder to catch.

I have to hand it to those base cops – they sure showed a tenacious persistence. I left base over the fence and came back on near my barracks and Dave hid in a dumpster half the night but the cops were a step ahead of us. They figured out which barracks we were from and simply circled it for hours waiting for us to show our faces.

That was back in the days where I had, shall we say, a less accurate moral compass. I didn’t really have a set of rules I lived by other than have fun and try not to get caught. But there comes a time in our lives when we get a little wiser, when we grow a little smarter, and we realize that a good set of rules on how to live can save us a lot of trouble.

There’s a set of rules I’ve come across lately that has helped me immeasurably in my life. I’m confident that these rules, while perhaps crafted for a larger purpose, can also be applied to dating and relationships.

The rules are known as The Four Agreements.

The Four Agreements come to us from the Toltec culture of ancient Mexico and were recently restated in book form in 1997 by Don Miguel Ruiz. The agreements are a sort of road map to an authentic and fulfilling life and, when followed, can free us from the doubt that we, and others, become mired in.

The first Agreement is ‘Be Impeccable with Your Word’. If you’re entering into a relationship tell your partner exactly what it is you are looking for. If they’re looking for something other than what you are do not be afraid to speak up. Our fears can overtake us at such times – we worry that if we’re honest our different aspirations can divide us. But be honest and open, you might be surprised at the good things that leads to. Also, don’t speak ill of your partner – I know this sounds basic, but it’s a rule that’s often violated. And if your partner is someone that, because of their actions, compels you to say unflattering things about them then that is a facet of your relationship you should act on, because it indicates that something’s not right.

The second Agreement is ‘Don’t Take Anything Personally’. This Agreement goes on to say that nothing others do is done because of you. That is sometimes contrary to how our minds work; I mean how often do we catch ourselves trying to divine the meaning of something someone has said or done to us? We often assume there is a deeper meaning to the things that go on around us and take the (somewhat selfish) view that they all have to do with us. They do not. Get over yourself – and get over putting the blame of a guy who lost interest in you on yourself. He stopped calling for any one of a hundred different reasons, don’t make yourself crazy by trying to figure out exactly what happened – and don’t take it personally.

The third agreement is ‘Don’t Make Assumptions’. This Agreement speaks of communication. It tells us to talk about how things are going with our partner rather than just figuring that because she or he is not saying anything, things must be okay. I am personally guilty of this one as recently as last summer. I dated a woman with whom I’d agreed to keep the lines of communications open – and then didn’t. I started working on the assumption that things were okay because she wasn’t saying much otherwise. By the time we actually did check in with each other we found that we’d created so much distance between ourselves we were unable to build a bridge big enough to span it.

The fourth Agreement is ‘Always Do Your Best’. For a guy as lazy as I can be this is the easy one, because if you follow the previous three it pretty much takes care of itself. If your words are impeccable, and you don’t take things others do personally, and you stop making assumptions then you are doing your best. And if you’re doing your best then your relationship is being given its best opportunity for success – which I hope you achieve. But even if you don’t achieve it you’ll have the knowledge that you tried to make things work in the best way you were able – and that knowledge is a great remedy for preventing regrets.

I have no regrets about getting up on the marquee that night with Dave. Things turned out okay because we were both fast enough to sprint into our dorm when the cop cars drove around the other side of it. But you know what? I’m not that fast anymore.

So maybe it’s time to follow a set of rules that steer me clear of trouble in the first place. 

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