I don’t think I have rejected love and intimacy, I have rejected the idea that it takes a partner to be happy. But I am open to the prospect of being wrong; as soon as I am inspired to abandon the notion I will.

“I truly believe that there is only so much thinking and self-actualization you can do on your own before you become overwhelmed with the need to share yourself–your experiences and thoughts and perceptions, your joy and happiness and vitality, your soul essence…”

that’s what a blog is for, no?

BUT, it takes practice. Like all skills, the ability to love takes practice, and the more often you fall in love and work on long-term sustained relationships without abandoning them at the first sign of conflict, the better YOU become at loving, and the easier you can fall in love. The joy lies not only in the falling, but in the richness of the shared journey together, and this only comes through lots and lots of practice with the tools of intimacy–honesty, communication, openness, trust. I too decry the outrageously high divorce rate. I don’t see it as an example of the way the “couple concept” fails us, but as an inability on the part of people to dig their heels in and really work on true intimacy–the dirty, gritty tug-of-war which naturally happens when two souls with different desires and aspirations have thrown their lot in together through thick and thin. And I think this comes from that fact that the tools of intimacy are really fucking hard to master, and after getting hurt once or twice, people are really reluctant to pick those tools back up again and open themselves up to love again.

It’s incredibly hard work to raise a child well–to raise a child who is very comfortable using the tools of intimacy, and who isn’t scared to do so. I agree wholeheartedly that being part of a couple is not at all a prerequisite for raising a child. A child needs love and stability, period. S/He child can get that from a single parent, they can get that from a couple, they can get it from any number of familial arrangements (and in fact, you should investigate the very serious arguments for polyamory and polyfidelity–people who outright reject the “couple concept” but haven’t equated this rejection with a rejection of love and initimacy). Intimacy is the true education we need to be teaching our children. When you talk about your “dating project” it makes me wonder if you should maybe go back and revisit your own mastery of the tools of intimacy. Work hard to bring about your own fulfillment–indeed, that is one of your cardinal tasks in life (before one can say “I love you” they must first be able to say “I”). But don’t forget that part of your own fulfillment might be journeying through life with another soul and working towards helping them to bring about their own fulfillment as well. Get back on that horse. Love is a skill, it takes practice, like anything else.

Hope all is well in NYC. ( shlurp)

http://tinyurl.com/2d9qza

http://tinyurl.com/o6psh

“embittered and massively narcissistic” – i love it. many a dating profile should be amended to include this phrase in the interest of accuracy.

http://tinyurl.com/2h34ee

“The dietary laws of kashrut are designed to differentiate and distance the observant person from the rest of the world.”

A critique of the article, which describes the author as “an embittered and massively narcissistic former yeshiva student,” is available here:

http://tinyurl.com/23pl2y

This site is about zola….

Just as George Grant laments for the death of a nation, I too,
lament for the death of the lover and of the same romanticism of the
original dream as Grant. If the concept of the lover were still in practice
then women would be more likely to meet their requisite needs for intimacy and sex without needing the whole kit and kaboodle of the relationship. But because the lover died somewhere in between Marlon Brando’s Last Tango in Paris and Richard Gere’s American Gigolo, women have no choice but to equate their unfulfilled desires for intimacy and sex with the need to couple. Naturally, I’m speaking relative to the Western world because the rest of the world is insignificant.

Furthermore, women, in particular, are bred without honor, and therefore almost inevitably turn on their friends come the mid twenties with higher aspirations that, I argue, never manifest. However, by the time such realizations set in, the friendships have long been laid to waste, leaving women needy of not only sex and intimacy, but companionship and comradery as well. The natural bearer of this amalgamation is the unsuspecting single male ages 25-40.

It is hardly surprising then, that when he catches a glimpse of said needs, his instinct is to run. He can barely stand up straight, let alone take on any given woman’s seemingly sexual and emotional insatiability all the while
compounded by her “ticking biological clock”. The resulting mix of anxiety
and jadedness a women derives out of her failed experiences at coupling can be appreciated but tagged on to the already overwhelming list, they become insuperable. So what we are left with is a sea of women that are, at once, emotionally and sexually insatiable because they have gone so long without, urgent in their demands because of biological functions beyond their control, and anxious and jaded as a consequence of their experiences- all frantically posting dating profiles boasting themselves as easygoing, laid back, and lots of fun according to their friends.