Boredom kills marriage. But it need not be fatal.

Seems this Cougar Lady who I follow on Twitter has put the cat among the pigeons with her blogpost and assertion that boredom kills more marriages than infidelity does.

Read full post at http://www.therealcougarwoman.com/2011/04/infidelity-isnt-what-breaks-up-marriages-its-boredom.html

I think she's dead right. I even left a comment on her blogpost. The only exception would be that I think there is a condition like serial philanderer - among both males and females- but this is a special case of emotional handicap.

But it begs the question...did people not get bored in previous generations also? And if so, why did they not end their marriages? Or did they simply have affairs? I think its easy to conclude that they simply had affairs, and maybe that was the case for men, but I don't think it was that easy for women of past generations to have affairs. Not socially, morally, economically, emotionally or physically ( the pill wasn't around!)

Even in today's scenario of relative economic, social, moral equality....if you believe that....I still don't think it's easy for a woman to have an affair because of emotional reasons. We are simply wired for bonding with one mate....the father of our children, or the potential father of a future child (eg a lover) . All the pheromones triggered by sexual intimacy is designed for attachment. So even if a woman should have an affair, it's usually about forming a new attachment, as opposed to just a roll in the hay for a physical release.

Beyond physiology, economics and chemistry, there are significant environmental, social and technological changes that compound the challenges of keeping relationships intact.

Today, the biggest "quick fix" for boredom is at people's fingertips. The World Wide Web and the mobile phone puts instant gratification in the palm of your hand.

Sites full of other "bored" people in search of a bit of spice- something better than they've got- are everywhere. It's easier than EVER to spice up your dreary existence, virtually or in person. Excitement and "forbidden thrills" are a mere few clicks away. The files of relationship counsellors are bulging with great relationships destroyed by internet dalliances - some fleeting and once-off, others a downward spiral of addiction.

See images below. Even these scenarios can be boring....if they become a pattern! Online porn and serial dating is BORING when its just a repeated pattern of one-dimensional flesh stripped bare of mystery, intrigue and rich and meaningful interaction.

But boredom need NOT be fatal nor permanent. It's not a reality if you choose to replace it with a new reality. It's simply a pattern that people get trapped in.

I repeat: Boredom is a pattern, not a fatal reality!

So, if patterns and predictability are a recipe for boredom, then there must be a way to pattern-interrupt?

Yes, the anti-thesis to boredom lies in nurturing the opposite. Nurturing mystery, uncertainty, curiosity, unpredictability, seduction.

""Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.”- RI Fitzhenry

Men and women of the world....keep the mystery alive...have separate bathrooms, don't reveal all, play games, write letters, light candles, book hotel rooms, do dress-ups, be mischievous, make effort, pretend you are having an affair...with your own partner. Lure them into a fantasy world.

Ignite those flames. It can be done if you don't leave it too long. By the time you have to bridge the Grand Canyon it may be too late, so start when you spot the first crack!

Slow sex and baby boomer variations on a theme

A Facebook friend, Reese Jones- a man with the vastest reading list in the universe, shared this with me tonight....and its of course not suitable material for my work related blog, and purrrrfect for this one!

Here's the thread grabbed from Facebook:

I am both amused by it all, not only the variations on a theme.....but how other trends, eg the "Slow Food" movement, seeps into the sexual zeitgeist. Must be the ageing population in America. Them wild baby boomer hippies from the 60's have too many backaches and buggered knees for fast and furious sex so they re-invent the genre...again!

Then again, the Orient has been teaching tantra for years!

Bring it on...fast and furious, slow and sensual ...I think its all just part of healthy playfulness!

If you are in San Francisco and have time for what promises to be a raucous night, hop along to the Commonwealth Club tonight. You may get lucky! ;-)))

http://nicoledaedone.com/2011/03/30/sex-dating-in-san-francisco/

Would you rather wash your hair than go on an uninspiring date?

There was a time when I was quite active in the online dating scene and it became so tedious to eat my way around Sydney's restaurants that I even thought of starting a blog called "Blokes with Style" - so I could help guys out with a bit of creativity!

I work in innovation and creativity and what I do day in and day out is to champion and create unordinary events, experiences and unusual approaches to break monotony, routine and dead-end relationships at work.

My own marriage failed largely because I married the world's most unimaginative risk-averse person- a good man but hopelessly wrong for me.

But I am not alone in valuing the creative effort above all else in the romance department. Every Christmas and birthday, let alone Valentine's Day, millions of women wake up to an after-thought or a poorly thought through gift, or none at all....just Happy Birthday- go pick your wn present and I'll pay for it scenario.

So, when I saw this story, despite the fact that its late after a long day and I have another long day ahead of me tomorrow, I simply had to capture it in this blog!

To quote from it: Psychologists Jens Förster, Kai Epstude and Amina Özelsel from the University of Amsterdam concluded that love literally makes us think differently. Our creative faculties are triggered, not just our analytical thinking. The opposite happens when we simply think about sex: Our analytical capacities are increased as our creativity diminishes.

I think when men realise that women read the degree of passion that a man feels for them in the degree of effort he makes to be creative and artful in his wooing and courtship- just as the woman expresses her degree of passion through the trouble she takes over her appearance, dress, hair, figure etc....

When both sexes get this connection between creativity and love, maybe then we will see more relationships saved.

The eligible bachelor paradox: Game Theory explains it

The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?
Advertisement

Actually, no—and here's why. Consider the classic version of the marriage proposal: A woman makes it known that she is open to a proposal, the man proposes, and the woman chooses to say yes or no. The structure of the proposal is not, "I choose you." It is, "Will you choose me?" A woman chooses to receive the question and chooses again once the question is asked.
The idea of the woman choosing expressed in the proposal is a resilient one. The woman picking among suitors is a rarely reversed archetype of romantic love that you'll find everywhere from Jane Austen to Desperate Housewives. Or take any comic wedding scene: Invariably, it'll have the man standing dazed at the altar, wondering just how it is he got there.

Full story here: http://www.slate.com/id/2188684/

Happy Valentine's Day...to the decisive ones! I am decisively single....and never been happier!

The future of love and the New Monogamy: Forward to the Past

The New Monogamy: Forward to the Past
An author and anthropologist looks at the future of love. This article was written by Helen Fisher and published in The World Futurist Society's magazine.

Marriage has changed more in the past 100 years than it has in the past 10,000, and it could change more in the next 20 years than in the last 100. We are rapidly shedding traditions that emerged with the Agricultural Revolution and returning to patterns of sex, romance, and attachment that evolved on the grasslands of Africa millions of years ago.

Let’s look at virginity at marriage, arranged marriages, the concept that men should be the sole family breadwinners, the credo that a woman’s place is in the home, the double standard for adultery, and the concepts of “honor thy husband” and “til death do us part.” These beliefs are vanishing. Instead, children are expressing their sexuality. “Hooking up” (the new term for a one-night stand) is becoming commonplace, along with living together, bearing children out of wedlock, women-headed households, interracial marriages, homosexual weddings, commuter marriages between individuals who live apart, childless marriages, betrothals between older women and younger men, and small families.

Our concept of infidelity is changing. Some married couples agree to have brief sexual encounters when they travel separately; others sustain long-term adulterous relationships with the approval of a spouse. Even our concept of divorce is shifting. Divorce used to be considered a sign of failure; today it is often deemed the first step toward true happiness.

These trends aren’t new. Anthropologists have many clues to life among our forebears; the dead do speak. A million years ago, children were most likely experimenting with sex and love by age six. Teens lived together, in relationships known as “trial marriages.” Men and women chose their partners for themselves. Many were unfaithful—a propensity common in all 42 extant cultures I have examined. When our forebears found themselves in an unhappy partnership, these ancients walked out. A million years ago, anthropologists suspect, most men and women had two or three long-term partners across their lifetimes. All these primordial habits are returning.

But the most profound trend forward to the past is the rise of what sociologists call the companionate, symmetrical, or peer marriage: marriage between equals. Women in much of the world are regaining the economic power they enjoyed for millennia. Ancestral women left camp almost daily to gather fruits, nuts, and vegetables, returning with 60% to 80% of the evening meal. In the hunting and gathering societies of our past, women worked outside the home; the double-income family was the rule, and women were just as economically, sexually, and socially powerful as men. Today, we are returning to this lifeway, leaving in the “dustbin of history” the traditional, male-headed, patriarchal family—the bastion of agrarian society.

This massive change will challenge many of our social traditions, institutions, and policies in the next 20 years. Perhaps we will see wedding licenses with an expiration date. Companies may have to reconsider how they distribute pension benefits. Words like marriage, family, adultery, and divorce are likely to take on a variety of meanings. We may invent some new kinship terms. Who pays for dinner will shift. Matriliny may become common as more children trace their descent through their mother.

All sorts of industries are already booming as spin-offs of our tendencies to marry later, then divorce and remarry. Among these are Internet dating services, marital mediators, artists who airbrush faces out of family albums, divorce support groups, couples therapists, and self-improvement books. As behavioral geneticists begin to pinpoint the biology of such seemingly amorphous traits as curiosity, cautiousness, political orientation, and religiosity, the rich may soon create designer babies.

For every trend there is a countertrend, of course. Religious traditions are impeding the rise of women in some societies. In countries where there are far more men than women, due to female infanticide, women are likely to become coveted—and cloistered. The aging world population may cling to outmoded social values, and population surges and declines will affect our attitudes toward family life.

Adding to this mix will be everything we are learning about the biology of relationships. We now know that kissing a long-term partner reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. Certain genes in the vasopressin system predispose men to make less-stable partnerships. My colleagues and I have discovered that the feeling of romantic love is associated with the brain’s dopamine system—the system for wanting. Moreover, we have found that romantic rejection activates brain regions associated with profound addiction. Scientists even know some of the payoffs of “hooking up.” Casual sex can trigger the brain systems for romantic love and/or feelings of deep attachment. In a study led by anthropologist Justin Garcia, some 50% of men and women reported that they initiated a hook up in order to trigger a longer partnership; indeed, almost a third of them succeeded.

What will we do with all these data? One forward-thinking company has begun to bottle what our forebears would have called “love magic.” They sell Liquid Trust, a perfume that contains oxytocin, the natural brain chemical that, when sniffed, triggers feelings of trust and attachment.

We are living in a sea of social and technological currents that are likely to reshape our family lives. But much will remain the same. To bond is human. The drives to fall in love and form an attachment to a mate are deeply embedded in the human brain. Indeed, in a study I just completed on 2,171 individuals (1,198 men, 973 women) at the Internet dating site Chemistry.com, 84% of participants said they wanted to marry at some point. They will. Today, 84% of Americans wed by age 40—albeit making different kinds of marriages. Moreover, with the expansion of the roles of both women and men, with the new medical aids to sex and romance (such as Viagra and estrogen replacement), with our longer life spans, and with the growing social acceptance of alternative ways to bond, I believe we now have the time and tools to make more-fulfilling partnerships than at any time in human evolution. The time to love is now.

About the Author

Helen Fisher is a research professor in biological anthroplogy at Rutgers University and chief scientific advisor of Chemistry.com. Her most recent book is Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Love (Henry Holt, 2010).

From now on...I'm DATING MYSELF!

I discovered slam poetry accidentally at about 2 am one morning several years ago while doing online  research on entrepreneurship/ start-up competitions. I stumbled into the winning Business Case of a Microsoft-sponsored competition- written and recorded as a "slam" poem by the Mayhem Poets outlining a plan to create a slam poetry teaching and "spoken word" performance centre for youngsters in New York City. It was the cleverest thing I had ever seen.

I kept digging....and then I found him. Taylor Mali. I fell in love on the third line of his first poem that I watched on YouTube. It was called: "What Teachers Make"

I had to have more of it. I wrote to Taylor and a few months later met up with him in New York, but alas, he was too expensive to buy and keep for myself. As a poet-in-residence, of course! (He has a very lovely wife whom he loves very much and writes the most beautiful poetry for.)

I have visited the well-known New York Slam Poetry clubs, The Nuyorican Cafe in Alphabet City, The Bleecker St and Cornelia St Cafe in Greenwich Village and the Bowery Club in the East Village, and even the Green Mile Club in Chicago- birthplace of Slam Poetry. I have books and CDs and I have even tried to get a chapter going at work. (Watch this space!)

Now and then I dip back into YouTube and it always delivers just the right poem for the occasion. Here's one on finding happiness through dating yourself!




So what did you think? Like it?

Meeting his / her kids

In mid-life, most people we will meet come with families. And, if you think its hard to make a first marriage work with 1 pair of inlaws, try 2 ex partners and four sets of in-laws, not even counting the kids!

My last serious relationship broke up ...over children. His, and mine and different values and approaches to how to deal with our children. And it was horrible. If this article can help anyone avoid this kind of pain, then I would be a very happy woman.

Our children are an extension of ourselves and it's not possible to maintain a "secret life" dating someone you care deeply for and keep that away from the children. What message does that in itself send to your kids? That you are ashamed of your partner? That you are in a sordid affair? That you cannot be trusted and are doing something behind their backs that you don't want them to know about? And how does that make your partner feel? Not very worthy - for sure.

When I don't know how to tackle a situation, I research it from many angles. Whilst I seldom find a silver bullet, it gives me confidence in my intuition. Intuitive wisdom and emotional intelligence is not so widespread, and some blokes just don't have much of it - especially if they are impatient in a new love affair. And note - teenagers are much more tricky than younger children.

So if you are intent on making the relationship work, is it not worth taking a bit of time to think things through? It's not a guarantee of success, but at least you can't blame yourself for blundering about like a bull in a china shop and fracturing delicate things needlessly, and it demonstrates your own maturity to your partner!

Kids are smarter than you think. Act from your Fourth Chakra- an open heart! Treat both your partner and kids with the respect and the honesty you espouse in all other relationships, and that will give you the best chance at future happiness.

While many of these articles deal with re-marriage, I believe the same care and approach should be taken in all serious long-term relationships. So here are a few good articles for further reading:

http://www.ivillage.com/making-healthy-stepfamilies/6-a-127706?p=1

http://www.suite101.com/content/meeting-your-partners-children-for-the-first-time-a304752

Have you ever dealt with this scenario before? What tips or experiences could you share?

The past, present and future of Love

The origins of our drive for a mate
Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics. His research uses evolutionary psychology to analyze social sciences such as sociology, economics, and anthropology.

Here he discusses the evolutionary psychology of successful dating! Apparently, men do what they do to get laid and in their younger years have their greatest achievements - apparently all part of the reproductive drive! Also, the maths of dating!
Watch it here- it's fascinating! http://bigthink.com/satoshikanazawa

Why online dating is so unsatisfactory
Then onto Dan Ariely, one of my top 5 favourite thought leaders. Dan is a Behavioral Economist from Duke University on . Dan Ariely is the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions and is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, where he holds appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the department of Economics. In addition, Dan is a visiting professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

If you are investing hours and HOURs on dating sites trying to find a suitable partner, then take 20 minutes to watch this interview with Dan: http://bigthink.com/danariely

Why online dating should be free and the role of maths (again!) 
Then, finally...the CEO and founder of OKCupid- a free online dating service
Sam Yagan is co-founder and CEO of OkCupid.com, the fastest-growing free online dating service. Yagan was previously co-founder and CEO of TheSpark.com, maker of SparkNotes, and president of MetaMachine, which developed P2P file-sharing application eDonkey. He has also been vice president and general manager at Delias, and vice-president and publisher at Barnes & Noble.

The Algorithmic Future of Love: http://bigthink.com/samyagan

SEX
And for a real Whooooaaaaaaa from a scientific not erotic, (but hugely amusing!) perspective! Take a look at the interview with Mary Roach, American science writer. 
She has published three books, the most reason being Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008). Raised in Etna, New Hampshire, she holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wesleyan University and currently resides in San Francisco, California.

She began her writing career at the San Francisco Zoological Society, producing press releases on such topics as elephant wart surgery.[1] In 1986, she sold a humor piece about the IRS to the San Francisco Chronicle. That led to a spate of humorous first-person essays for such publications as Sports Illustrated, Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, Discover, Outside, Reader's Digest (for whom she wrote a monthly humor column) and GQ.

She appeared on The Colbert Report, a satirical news program, in November 2005.

http://bigthink.com/maryroach

Why remarry?

Nearly two of three second marriages end in divorce, and cohabitation is increasingly accepted. Why make a relationship official?

How to Make It Work This Time
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/19/why-remarry/how-to-make-a-second-marriage-work

Second marriages, on average, are slightly more likely to break up than first marriages, but the difference is quite modest. Twenty-seven percent of women in their second marriages divorce before their 10th wedding anniversary, compared with 23 percent of women in their first marriage.

First, you have to admit that your first marriage's failure wasn't all your ex-spouse's fault.
These averages hide big variations by class and educational level, with educated, economically secure couples having a much lower rate of divorce. Furthermore, they lump together those people who learn from their first marriages how to make a relationship succeed and those for whom the second marriage is simply a way station on their way to a second, third or even fourth divorce – none of them, of course, in any way their fault.

Interestingly, women initiate two-thirds of all divorces, and only half as many divorced women as men want to marry again. When women do decide to marry again, says Lawrence Ganong, a step-family expert at the University of Missouri, they usually seek more power in their new relationship than they had the first time around, and in successful remarriages husbands tend to be more willing to yield such power.

Over the years, I have taken oral histories of many couples whose second marriage had lasted longer than their first marriage and was still going strong. In almost every case, two things stood out. One was the willingness of these individuals to admit what they had done wrong the first time around, instead of putting all the blame on their former spouse. The second was that both spouses felt they had discarded older gender-stereotyped attitudes and behavior that had created problems in their first marriage.

But this occurred in different ways for each sex. The men I interviewed tended to attribute the success of their second marriage to their having learned to be a more involved father and a more egalitarian partner. The women, by contrast, usually reported that they had changed what they were looking for in a potential mate. The second time around, they said, they were drawn to men who listened to them rather than trying to impress them.

The psychologist Joshua Coleman, co-chairman of the Council on Contemporary Families, says he has found the same patterns in his work with clients. “When people take some responsibility for why and how the first marriage ended,” he says, “that allows them to work on the challenges of a new relationship in a more productive way, or decide to not take a problematic relationship any further.” And when they do establish those relationships, Coleman observes, "women in successful remarriages often become more independent than they were in their first marriages, while men learn to be less independent."

Breaking with traditional gender patterns is especially important when children are involved. Successful step-families are more flexible in their family boundaries than couples in a “traditional” nuclear family, and less rigid in assigning parenting roles by gender. A wise stepfather, for example, doesn’t try to become the family disciplinarian. (Note from Ms Maverick: This was the undoing of my last serious relationship- a judgemental partner who was outspoken and out of line when it came to my children) A stepmother may find it more effective to act like a friendly aunt than to try to become an instant “mom.”

But this doesn’t mean these relationships are “second best.” Second marriages can and do create “real” families.

Author of this article:
Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and wrote "Marriage, A History." Her new book, "A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s," will be out in January.

That moment! First date jitters- and Dawn French is not alone!

I have vivid recollections of my first date as a newly single 40-year old mum, and it wasn't dissimilar to what Dawn French describes in this video. Watch the whole thing or fast-track to around 1 min 20 secs.


Nine years have passed since that first date, and it doesn't get any easier...lol....every time you meet someone new you have to confront "That Moment" - and get through it and beyond it! And if a woman of Dawn French's confidence struggles, is it any surprise that the rest of us feel adrift at sea in these moments?

From a middle-aged female perspective raised with values of "not being an "easy" girl" and waiting for him to ring and initiate the chase, you arrive at the end of the date, and you don't know where you stand. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't make an obvious move, and you are left feeling very vulnerable. So, instead of the akwardness of "THAT MOMENT", you close up. You self-protect by getting very practical, platonic and functional- even if your insides are screaming "Kiss me now you bastard".

I am sure if you are a newly-single middle-aged male, this is even more frightening because YOU are the one expected to make that move! And no-one wants to be romantically rejected! And in the absence of strong and obvious clues from your female date, avoidance would be a most appealing alternative action.

It's supposed to be easier when we are older and more experienced, but it's actually harder for a whole host of new reasons. We don't have the confidence of youth, many of us have scars from a relationship that faltered after many years for whatever reason, and we are certainly not in the same shape we used to be! Its also easier to withdraw back into the cave after a few less than spectacular dates, because our biological sexual drive is not firing as strong to overcome rejection as it does when you are in your teenage years!

Id be interested to hear: How do YOU handle THAT MOMENT? Any tips we could share here with others?

How to write a first letter!

This is a humorous and clever way to get a message across. And that is the message of FIRST impressions!



In online dating, there isn't any body language or non-verbal cues to go on- just the words on the screen. And boy, do these words weigh disproportionately heavily in the absence of anything else, so every careless mistake communicates more than you think it does.

Yes, in the bigger scheme of things, the odd spelling error is not a fatal character flaw, but when you want to make a favourable first impression, and given the abundance of spell check tools available on most devices and platforms, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to get it right.  Failure to care enough to use these tools and make an effort to represent yourself well does actually say something about you....doesn't it?

In this clip....note the tone.  It's friendly not over the top, personal not over-familiar, warm not sexual, but most importantly....the writer pays attention to spelling and punctuation and fixes it!

Whilst it would be unlikely that anyone would go to this much trouble to compose a "collage love letter" and then film it stock-motion style and edit it to produce this result, I think I'd fall lock stock and barrel for anyone who approached me in such a creative manner!

What do you think about the messages in this video clip?

So let me get this straight......

‎"So let me get this straight... Larry King is on his 8th divorce, Elizabeth Taylor is possibly getting married for a 9th time, Britney Spears had a 55-hour marriage, Jesse James and Tiger Woods, while married, were having sex with everyone; and yet the idea of same-sex marriage is still going to destroy the institution of marriage? Really?"


The above comes via my favourite Slam Poet, Taylor Mali in response to the usual outcry after Obama Govt repealed the Don't ask, don't tell policy of the US Armed Forces. 


Repost to your page if you abhor hypocrisy and believe that equal rights means equal rights for ALL

Monogamy in the minority? A spectrum of intimate relationships

I was totally startled whilst doing some research on visual graphics designers tonight to stumble upon this arresting infographic that represents data on the nature and prevalence of a range of relationships.  Fascinating data....what do you make of it?

Source: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/the-varieties-of-intimate-relationship/

Source: http://www.obsidianfields.com/lj/nonmonogamy2.5.1.gif

The Fourth Chakra: Giving thanks by giving: Down doesn't mean out

The Fourth Chakra: Giving thanks by giving: Down doesn't mean out: "This week, I posted a blog of my personal participation in a small project to provide swags shelters for homeless folks this Christmas, a..."

Giving thanks by giving: Down doesn't mean out

This week, I posted a blog of my personal participation in a small project to provide swags shelters for homeless folks this Christmas, and tweeted it to my 4800 followers on Twitter, thinking that Metcalfe's law would kick in and I would easily attract support.

Turns out it DOESN't work. Twitter is about weak ties, not personal relationships.  It got retweeted a gazillion times, but the only contributions I received bar one from a French guy in Paris, came from a small number of people I have a heart-to-heart personal relationship, ie strong ties with. 

These were folks who knew me, my values, my passion and wanted to acknowledge that, more so than the cause. Funny enough, 2 ex boyfriends were the biggest single donors. 

Lesson here: People are drawn to each other because of similar values, but, it doesn't always work out. When that happens, breaking up without damaging each other is so important.  If you can still treat one another with an "open heart", dignity and respect, you will feel all the better for it, and whilst it may hurt at the time, the healing eventually happens and then a beautiful and life-long friendship can be the reward of all those shared times. 

My blogpost has now been viewed 3000 times and I have personally raised about $3500 in 3 days with my efforts, which will buy about 50 swags for people without a home or bed, this Christmas. 

If this Thanksgiving or Christmas, you want to open your heart and give thanks by giving, click here now, and select team member: Annalie Killian http://www.everydayhero.com.au/itamp_mad .

And, if you don't, I am STILL grateful that you took the time to read this - magic is catalysed in unexpected ways and it will come back. 

We can't save everyone, but we do what we can. 


And don't forget, we still have 3 places for Thanksgiving dinner on 25/11 for singles in Sydney! 

Too many Christmases all at once: the design flaw in online dating sites

So, today I am going to talk about why I think that online dating sites are fundamentally flawed.

The answer lies in the fact that it provides unlimited choice. I believe this is a greater problem than the fact that it only searches "attributes" according to the views of Prof Dan Ariely, one of my favorite behavioral economists. See his talk on http://bigthink.com/ideas/20749 about why online dating is an unsatisfactory experience.

I have harboured my own views for at least 7 years now. Whilst I'm not a professionally trained social scientist but more of an intuitive pattern-recognizer and trend-spotter, I feel vindicated when I suddenly start breakthrough studies that allow social scientists to analyse large quantities of data, such as online dating populations.

But, I am not going to bore you with data. Instead, I will share a beautiful metaphor that I read in a Cosmo at the hairdresser's this morning whilst trapped for 3 hours without intellectual stimulation (ipad battery was flat!).

In my entire life I bought maybe 3 Cosmos - probably in my late teens early twenties. It's not my kind of hard-core fact-based magazine, but I relish catching up with how the mainstream lives when I visit the hair or nail parlour.  These brief Cosmo-moments provide much-needed perspective and a balance to my usual reading list of MIT Technology Review or WIRED. I aslo explains why I am pretty unsuccessful at dating. (I am self-aware of my eccentricities and geeky interests that scare the bejesus out of many blokes who are totally out of their depth the moment the conversation turns to augmented reality orgene modification)

Back to Cosmo. I love it's honesty. Like it's male counterpart, "Men's Health", it's unabashedly obsessed with sex, dating and relationships. Every article, fashion shoot or column eventually circles back to the central theme: how to get laid.

So, in the Nov '10 edition that landed in my lap at the salon this morning, there's this about why guys fail to commit, by Tonight Show host, Michael Jann.

Michael invokes a story about men being visual,and how at age 10, he went to his Dad's office Christmas Party with the largest pile of shiny, wrapped, delicious-looking presents he had ever seen. All shapes and sizes. A thousand mysteries. All that held the promise of wish fulfillment, the potential of a mind- blowing surprise that far exceeded your own expectations. And the terrible realization that out of that enormous pile, you had to choose. Just one.

Michael recounts being seized with terror. What to pick? How to choose? The tiny, understated one that hints luxury and expensiveness or the brightly wrapped one? The one with the seductively curved silver bow or the one with the cute reindeer print reminding him of his stuffed toy Bambi?

"Why can't I open them all first, and THEN decide?" is all that's going through Michael's mind at that moment. But Michael could just as well have been Melanie, or Margaret, or me.

And there ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the problem with online dating sites. It offers infinite choice. It makes locking in a choice a compromise, and then it provides an escape valve!

With so much choice, and a continuous stream of new additions, i.e.fresh profiles of new "single and seeking" candidates being piled under the proverbial Christmas tree every hour of every day, there is NO SCARCITY!

Why commit and overinvest time in one present to love and treasure when there's the whole of Santa's workshop to choose from, and the elves keep adding more options every day?

Evolutionary psychologist, Santoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics, says that the greater the population density, the harder it is to find a life partner, because of this lack of scarcity vs time. In remote and rural communities, people make do with what is available and seek to make the best of what is available and in range. Somehow, they find lifelong satisfactory relationships!

Now, place yourself in an environment with infinite choice, and abundance drives inability to choose and commit.

Add into this mix that in Australia, there is a demographic skew with a ratio of hetero women outnumbering hetero men in certain age brackets, and a third complication which I will label: The "Fallout" effect (with credit to Michael Jann for inspiration), and you have a disaster when it comes to mid- life dating experiences. The fallout effect has to do with how badly men deal with relationship break-up, but, more on the "Fallout" effect in my next post.

For now, I am interested in hearing from you if this analogy of multiple Christmas pressies all at once resonates personally with your own online behavior ( as in click, delete, next!) or your own experiences ( click, deleted, confused/ disillusioned).

What do you make of my theory?

Alone for Thanksgiving? Make new friends and give thanks together

I am not American, but the idea of reflecting collectively as a community on the blessings we enjoy in our lives is something that has always appealed to me, and there should be more of it.

So imagine my delight when last Saturday night Frank Nicholas, (CEO aka Chef, Expediter and Operator) at the recently opened Blue Plate Bar and Grill in Neutral Bay told me that they are offering a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner on 25 November, right down the road from where I live in Sydney.

Well, I jumped on Twitter and within minutes folks started putting up their hands to join me in putting a few tables together for anyone who wants to join in.

The only proviso folks...if you sign up, please honour the commitment as its not cool to drop out and leave others to make up the shortfall.

The Menu ( Paired with American wines)
Entree: Acorn squash soup, followed by a honeydew melon sorbet palate cleaser
Main course: Corn-bread stuffed roast turkey with cranberry sauce, candied yams, sweet potatoe pie, succotash, green beans
Dessert: Pecan pie or pumpkin pie

Here's the deal:
Venue: The Blue Plate Bar & Grill, 24 Young St ( entrance on Grosvenor St), Neutral Bay, 2089,Sydney.
Time: 8pm sitting
Price: $76 per adult for 3 course set menu paired with American wines ( a child's price is available on request)
RSVP: Leave a comment below and I will e-mail you directly, or tweet me @the4thchakra on Twitter

As a frequent traveller, I have often found myself alone in far away places during traditional cultural celebrations like Christmas or Easter, and find those times really challenging to be alone. So if this applies to you, why not join a group of warm-hearted welcoming strangers in a similar boat? It may just be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Why do people use online dating sites even though they suck?

Hands up- who's tried online dating? Right, we all have, even if we won't admit it publicly.

Hands up: who loves it? Thought so. Ok, let's rephrase the question. Who hates it? Yeah, now I see an ocean of hands.

We all know they're designed to cash in on hope, deliver little value relative to time and emotional capital invested and can leave your self-esteem in tatters. So why do we continue keep doing it? Perhaps some of these reasons?

1. You think dating people you work with or in your professional network is not a good idea - for obvious reasons, so you look elsewhere.
2. Your circle of friends is largely attached/ married and at a loss what to "do" with you, or the friendships fractured after you split from your partner, so you need to build a new social circle. You reason an obvious place is to lstart with others in the same boat.
3. You are over the beer goggles, "drink-and-shag" stage of your life, or you never got into it in the first instance, so a drinking hole as a likely meeting place for someone you share common values with is not an option. Leaving what? Grocery shopping on a Saturday night?
4. You've left a sign out your front door telling Cupid to stop here, but Cupid's obviously pre-occupied "somewhere else". You don't know the directions to "somewhere else" and you think RSVP, Match, or Friendfinder might discreetly aid serendipity.
5. Admittedly, it's fun fantasizing that the Internet might miraculously deliver a sexy
financially-independent,intelligent, uncomplicated, well-adjusted altruistic partner, like in
the movies, right? That's ok, it's a sign that you still have romance left in you!
6. You have signed up and not only invested a subscription fee, but a lot of time trying
to work out what the hell to write, what people want, what works to attract the right sort, and despite all your horrible interactions, you hang in there because you're an optimist.

I have been single since 30 September 2002 when I had to leave my marriage or risk being a
miserable, depressed and angry person for the rest of my life. I chose action above inaction,
and actually, I have discovered this truth about myself ; I definitely have a bias towards
action, I am never the victim of circumstances.

Which is another reason why I am going to experiment with this blog for meeting interesting people who feel the same, instead of playing charades and paying ridiculous fees to a hopelessly flawed system.

Maybe nothing will come of it, and I am totally happy with that, but I already feel better for
having taken the first step to say "Enough of the exploitation of a basic human need for companionship and the toxic erosion of self-esteem!" My self-esteem is pretty resilient and robust without being arrogant or insular, and I want it to remain intact, healthy and happy.

I have enjoyed a couple of rewarding romantic relationships over the past 8 years, and whilst it's challenging to balance it all alongside the emotional needs of one's children which I chose to put ahead of my own, eventually they grow up and there is more space for attracting love back into one's life. It's not that I feel half-empty without it, it's just that it allows me to continue growing as a person because nothing helps me work on being a better person as much as meaningful relationships.

So I will open my fourth chakra, the heart, in this place instead, and invite you, whoever you are, to share yours too. ( By the way, this is about friendship and not finding a husband- so anyone who wants to participate in the conversation is welcome!)

But let's agree to dwell on the positive and not the negative, and no matter where the conversations go, to honor everyone with acceptance, love and respect.