I have generally believed that people ought to pursue romantic relationships with those close to their own age. The differences in cultural values and life experience were too great, in my opinion, for people more than about seven years apart in age to have a successful relationship.
Lately, I've been rethinking that. Take two hypothetical people: one is twenty, the other is forty-five. Almost everyone would agree one is too young for the other. But that's using twenty and forty-five as the basis for comparison.
Who says that has to be the basis? What if, instead of comparing them to each other, we compare them to the age of our whole universe, now estimated at 13.75 billion years? Now we have a different, cosmic perspective.
And the fact is, none of us is here for more than a blink of God's eye, anyway, so why split hairs over age differences?
With that in mind, I invited an acquaintance to lunch this week. She is, in fact, 25 years younger than me. We talked about meditation practice, our families, various spiritual interests. It was a very pleasant adult conversation, not flirty in any way.
In spite of the age difference, she seems like someone I could sit with for a couple of hours and say nothing at all. And that's important to me.
But I have a long history of magical thinking about this kind of thing. As I've said before, I've been infatuated many times, and made foolish many times. I have worked long and hard on it. My friends think I'm a hardcore cynic on this subject. But I am no longer, as my therapist once said, "gullible and naive."
While we were talking about our spiritual practices, I told her, "What I want is to see things clearly, free of my own biases, prejudices and preconceived notions."
I want to see this clearly as well, but I don't think I do.
I would rather be alone than be crazy, and that's the main reason I'm alone.
4 comments:
Ah, my dear friend, I absolutely love your false dichotomies. Have you considered the notion that you may be both alone AND crazy?
Do you recall that I dated the lovely Juliet? She, not yet 30, and me in my mid-50s, were together (and volatile and apart) for about 2 years. She's now going to school in Olympia, WA, and quit me when I could not commit to a ring and a white picket fence. In the meantime, it was a lovely time. It was crazy fun and exciting and she was plenty brainy enough to keep me on my toes. Although the relationship ended, I don't in the least regret it and wouldn't have done anything different and consider it a "successful" relationship -- and we're still friends.
Those Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks relationships where both are soulmates to the other and all is roses and nobody farts or scratches only happen in the movies. Are you so perfect that you will find the perfect woman who has no flaws you dislike and who will never complain about even one single obnoxious habit of yours? Please. How about you let go of your Casablanca romance, Play it Again, Sam, and come down to earth and have a HUMAN relationship that is necessarily flawed and imperfect, one in which both you and she must compromise about some things? Ahh. What a concept!
Myself, I have three things about myself which I acknowledge are flaws in my character, but I won't give them up because these three things are part of the flaws that define me as a human. I let the woman in my life have her own three things. Then, I look for someone flexible enough to give and take to compromise the other thousand things one or another of us finds obnoxious. I've had at least four relationships I consider a success, even though they were not happily ever after, because they were so rewarding and happy for so long. These relationships were destined to end in all events, even if by death of one of us, because life isn't permanent and neither are emotions and personal development.
Fear of failure, impossible expectations of other people, a lack of flexibility, compassion, recognition of the fall of man from a state of grace -- these all block us from the happiness of sharing our lives with wonderful people.
I love you, man. One reason is because I see you and me both struggling with the same issues and with equal earnest over-intellectualizing, rationalizations and self justifying. Hang in there, dude. No doubt the universe will unfold as it should.
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Read some Robert Anton Wilson and see what happens RE seeing things free from your biases and personal coloring of "reality."
Congratulations, JohnX!
We're all crazy. The beauty is you get to pick the type of crazy you want to hang out with.
That soulmate stuff is a bunch of crap, yet you can have many soulfriends - platonic or not! I found my type of weird and am greatly enjoying the ride how ever long it lasts.
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