Some thoughts on Love and Relationship. by Syd Gris

So when I was posting some columns on the website of the Late Night Coalition, two of them were on love. (Love on the Dance Floor parts 1 & 2). I consolidated them into one here to share, but if you happened to have already read those then this is just redundant for you. Thinking out loud on why relationships are so damn hard but we can't help ourselves anyway.

Some thoughts on love on the dance floor.

Hooking up love in a club is no easy feat. Despite the plethora of options and frequent use of varying kinds of substance induced attraction goggles, for how many times you go out it’s pretty rare you meet someone you like. Even if you do, they have to like you back, you have to be able to hear each other having a conversation, like the way they dance, and not scare them off for all the reasons people get scared off. Once you actually work up enough momentum to actually see each other outside the party environment, then the real work begins. And you thought being witty while yelling over the DJ was hard?? Think again! The dynamics of relationship is a tangled affair and I know I don’t have to tell you that. Let me first say before going on that I speak as a hetero male speaking in general terms about male and female dynamics, so don’t get all upset I don’t include every combination of people out there that form relationships. In this town especially, the sky is pretty much the limit. I’m taking broad strokes and great liberties, if you want better differentiated dynamics there’s lots of great books out there, read some Deida.

The problem with men is that they’re stupid. I’m sorry but it’s true. Men in general are not close enough to their emotions to think ahead about how their actions may effect someone else, especially a woman who cares about them. They use their mind to attempt to engineer their emotions in ways that won’t hurt as bad if they are the hurt-er or the hurt-ee, so to speak. Much of it is simply mental deception, fermenting in consciousness until we act out through self-medicating actions such as drugs, meaningless sex, etc. Many men do not have an appreciation of how shared experiences get emotionally translated differently between men and women. Sex is the most obvious example. I dare say in general men have more frequently done it without emotions involved than women, and this has led to a lot of hurt. You can blame it on our fuck-everyone- in-the-clan mentality we’ve inherited, coupled with socialization and having trophies and notches and all that shit. In a way it doesn’t really matter to me. It exists, it’s caused a lot of pain, and understanding needs to happen in both directions. Men and women are wired differently, testosterone makes us more aggressive, sexual and stupid. Ask any woman whose had to under go testosterone treatment; they get horny, angry, and want to fall asleep after cuming instead of cuddling.

From some psychological perspectives, it's thought that men (unconsciously) want someone who can mommy them and still be a sex object. This is a union between the mommy thing and our need to have a companion and sexual relations. It should be no secret that the blue print of relationships we carry starts with the relationship with our parents. We learn what to expect from different people, often in a very gender specific manner, from how our care-givers treat us (more on that below). Men still want someone with tenderness and care taking skills like a mother, but who can be naughty and sexual and womanly and help them transcend the desire to be mommied. Of course, if a woman is too much a mommy (big sexual turn off) or too much a sex object (that’s the girl you just want to sleep with), the prognosis is not good.

Women, of course, are crazy. Women are so close to their emotions they are at times taken hostage by a number of (at times) irrational (to a man) emotional tidal waves. They make a number of crazy assumptions about how men are supposed to act if they really loved them, really cared about them, etc. We are all guilty of the 'if-then' mistake, but I think women are a bit more susceptible. Like: "If he really loved me, then he would not go clubbing tonight and spend time with me." Oh brother is that trouble! The level of irrational thought process about his feelings, motivations, fantasies, dreams, wedding colors he prefers are often totally beyond anything men actually think about. It’s nothing personal of course, we just are different!

I think hetero women want a man who can be his own man (like the authoritative father), who can take control of a situation and have a back bone, but who will also do what the woman wants, when they want it! A bit of contradictory motivations there, obviously set up some conflicts. And yes, I'm simplying! A woman may get mad when the man doesn’t act right, but loses respect if he just seems to be trying to cow-tow to try and please her all the time. They would prefer men to be mind readers, because it’s taken as a sign of love and understanding if a guy can anticipate her needs. If she has to ask, the man is often in big trouble, cause she’s resentful she has to ask. Then, when he comes through, or attempts to, it’s often not good enough because it feels contrived. ("You’re just doing that because I told you too, not cause you really want to.") Either way you’re in big trouble! Of course my advice to men- do it anyway, at least you’ll get some credit for trying. And she’s probably giving you good advice anyway. Behind every great man, there is a great woman.

I really believe if more women voted, they could quickly change the world. Women in my opinion are closer to Spirit because of their ability to create, and they have an inherent ability to give of themselves and sacrifice in ways men can not dream of without being really put to the test. Men are much more likely to be selfish and we have so much to learn from women about giving, tenderness, presence, and sometimes hygiene. Of course, women could use some of our rationality that, too much of, makes us emotionally stupid, and men could use some of that craziness which would make them more emotionally present and intelligent.

Regardless of your gender sexual preference, I believe masculine and feminine issues arise in every relationship, and we need each other to be balanced and progress toward that great pie in the sky, that End Goal and Be All of Reality, that greatest sweetest kiss the Universe has to offer, the very fiber holding reality together, the language of God and Spirit when that great Force chooses to speak… I’m speaking about love of course. The very thing we all want and need more than anything, the very thing that can stop war and hate and suffering. Hippy shit is sometimes true.

So, carrying on, let's chat in more detail about something mentioned above, and it’s something that I urge all of you to seriously think about. This is about the way you see relationship with your loved one in the first place. What do you want from them? What do you get from them? What do you expect from them? What do they do for you? What do you need formt hem to feel emotionally fulfilled? To shed light on these questions I suggest you start with the foundation of your first relationship - your parents.

Your relationship with your parents is the foundation of what you expect in all relationships. It, as I said earlier, the blue print. If you had a positive relationship with your father for example, you are more likely to view men in authority in a positive light, and even to act in a way as to generate the response you expect. In all relationships, we tend to elicit the reaction we expect, whether that is a conscious or unconscious expectation. Let’s take a more common example. Let’s say you’re a girl whose dad left your household when you were young, and many of you were because the divorce rate is so sadly high. Depending on what kind of relationship you had once he was no longer living with you, it has the strong potential to set up the following dynamic. You may have been emotionally devastated by the fact your dad left YOU. No matter the reason, you’re a little girl whose dad has left, it’s really hard not to take that personally. You secretly believe somewhere inside you that you’re not worthy of love from a man, and therefore when you get it, it does not compute with your worldview. You have two options, one is to change your worldview, the other is to act in ways that the man leaves you so you can go on believing in your worldview. Humans are funny that way, often we would rather be right than be happy. We favor consistency and predictability over integrating new information that requires us to question our most basic assumptions. Often this is because these assumptions are unconscious and therefore unquestioned.

I emphasize this because this happens all over our relationships. We have expectations from the first example we had of relationship, that with our caregivers. And it’s not always the repetition of that, sometimes it’s the reaction against. For example if a guy has an engulfing mother, sometimes he may pick the same kind of mate, but sometimes he will choose the opposite, in this case someone who is very aloof and unaffectionate. The crux of how this problem plays out is to what extent it has been examined.

Oh Syd, there you go again, why must you be so persistently annoying?? I can’t help it, the truth is the truth. The unexamined life is a recipe for polluting the world with your unresolved pain, and that is bad. It’s bad for the world, it’s bad for your love life, and it’s bad for you. Beware the potential mate who has a poor relationship with their parents and hasn’t tried to deal with it. Let’s face it, some of our parents are crazy and there’s not much we can do about it. Some of them are downright toxic and having a relationship with them is actually a bad thing for us. It’s sad but true. The point is not how good is it, though that will certainly be a barometer of other issues, but have they looked at it? Have they dealt with it? Is their head in the emotional sand? Are they medicating their emotions through drugs, sex with you, partying, working, being ‘spiritual’, and all the ways we distract ourselves from what is painful and what is real?

Relationships can be used in the same way drugs are, to fill a hole we don’t want to look down. You all know the friend who can’t be single more than a day or two. They have to have someone in their life to distract them from themselves, to validate their impoverished sense of self. Of course, relationships can also be the most trying form of spiritual work out there, cause they press so many buttons of ego, attachment, selfishness, caring, loving, etc. It once again comes back to intention, and what you are in relationship for, and part of that once again will be informed by your templates for relationship.

Men and women are different. It goes back to biology, to history, to socialization, to culture etc. And that’s OK. What may be true for one is not always true for the other and applying your truth to your partner is another frequent mistake made by both parties. Be wary of that, just cause you think it may mean something does not mean that that’s the way it IS. What IS can be very fuzzy, very grey (did someone say gris?). A frequent arguement I've heard that's tough to balance is the favorite post-modern New Age co-opted creedo: "Don't tell me I'm wrong, my perception is my reality." Well news flash folks, our perceptions aren't always right. Some Southerners didn't think Africans / African -Americans were worthy of freedom. Some Nazi's didn't think Jews were worthy of living. This was their perception and their reality and they were fucking wrong. Of course, the subjective world of feelings must be respected, but if the lens of our perception that heavily influences our feelings is clouded by our pain and ignorance, etc., we're not seeing things as they are, and that needs to be dealt with.

The differences are part of the dance and the dance can be fun and it can be miserable, often it’s both. But when it’s good it’s so good! Love at it’s best, calls upon our highest self, and our most giving and sacrificing tendencies, to actually expand the bounds of your Self to let another in. When you expand the boundaries of your self you loosen your sole identity with that self and that puts you closer to feeling the ever present Spirit that is the Suchness of reality. And that’s what it’s all about, right there, awakening to that ever present truth. That’s the beauty of love and why it’s the music of that Spirit, calling to you to dance with it.

Love on the dance floor... love is the dance and the dance floor. To have it at its purest is to achieve some of the greatest things to achieve in life, but it takes work to have that kind of love, it does not come naturally, we are too flawed. Work sucks, but do it anyway