Love again

I noticed this article about a couple, now in the Guinness Book, married 80 years. I thought it might interest those of you that are looking for love or that have love and want it to last.

I think part of the problem of building (and it is work!) a good, long term relationship now is that we are too quick to quit when problems develop. When it was just you and the mate against the elements, the carnivors and the angry natives you HAD to learn to work together, dividing chores so one could get at the gun, so to speak.

This was not by gender but by necessity. She couldn't stack hay as fast has he could so she would keep the powder dry and stand watch. He couldn't weave as quickly so he stood guard and fed the stock. They were tired by day's end. There was no time or energy for thinking up things like, "does he still think my butt is cute?" or "Am I keeping her happy in bed?" only for things that were truely important, "do I need to make more bullets tomorrow?" or "Do we have enough food to get through the winter?". You had more perspective on what was really important to your relationship, like keeping each other alive!

You learned to depend on each other. This built trust between you. When it took three hours to jog over to the neighbors (usually family) to get help you had to learn to be an interdependant unit of two. You would build on each others strengths and knowledge to love, survive and reproduce.

I believe it's easier to have "multiple faces" now. I think people have always had "home manners" and "guest manners" but now we have added office manners, public manners, private manners and more. We each develop the ability to size up a situation and behave in the appropriate manner. (Well, most of you, not me!)

I'm not saying it makes you a split personality but I do think it takes longer to peel away the manners and find the human under it all. Instead of 3 months and you know all about the other person I think it takes at least 6 months for all the manners to go away and 3 more for the glow to fade if it is a physical attraction and not true love. It just makes it so much more difficult to get to know each other to have all these different personalities in place.

As for online dating, I don't know how you can use set answers to someone else's questions to judge another person. There isn't enough flexibility to let their own expressions come through. Is it "I only like dogs" or "mom wouldn't let us have cats so I don't know if I like them", or "I hate cats!" Do they consider a walk after dinner to be "execising regularly" or does getting out of bed define it for them? How frustrating!

I guess the only way I know to find out if I like someone is to get out there and meet them. Try to set up as comfortable a place or situation as possible for us both and commence sharing experiences. Of course, I am comfortable talking to people waiting in line at the check out. I know a lot of the "public manners" require you to ignore others conversations. Some times I can, sometimes I can't...I've had some pretty strange conversations with strangers and it's usually fun for both of us.

People with nothing more in common than that they ride the same type of motorcycle will be come good friends just by spending time together and getting to know each other. I have witnessed it. Total strangers will tell each other jokes and sing along with a good entertainer that knows how to break the ice for them. It's the time to get to know others that lets us learn what kind of people they are.

A neighbor's girl used to play with my kids a lot. One day Eldest Daughter came home crying because her friend was moving. To make it easier for her I told her I would find out if they would be close enough to visit or get an address and they could still be pen pals. I got over there and this Mom, a frumpy old lady (visual impression) was really only a very hard used 20 something that had been dealing with a lot of the same problems I had. We talked four hours and wished we had gotten to know each other sooner. They were moving too far to visit to get away from a violent ex-husband. Now I was upset! I got an address. We wrote a few times and life slid us apart, but we helped each other through some hard times. That's a friend!

My whole life with this mate started over again because I said "hello" to him. So don't pass up people who may be friends for life or more based on a few limited responses. Take those chances, stick those necks out. Meet someone doing something you enjoy, say hello, smile at them! Get accquainted!