80. “Dating” is a picture-word in your mind that takes you out of the happiness of just “being”

This blog is called Senior Dating. I use the word “dating” because it’s a short, simple term most people understand. But we probably should be talking about “mature friendship” because that’s what I really mean. The word “dating” has a whole image built around it. It comes bearing certain gifts – or burdens, depending on how you view it. But it does come laden with meanings and expectations.

And its those expectations that cause much of our pain in dating. We expect a date to be fun. We expect this woman will be interested in us. We expect the guy to be polite and show us a good time. The expectations can run into the thousands I suppose.

But what if we met someone for coffee or some activity, whether it be a movie, dinner or a walk in the park, just as a person who may be a friend? Without the label, “date”, we may find all the expectations have dropped and we’re just being present to the person and situation as it is.

When we’re going on a date we may not notice that we’re anticipating the next romantic high in our lives. We’re looking to something in the future that’ll make us happier than we are right now. But happiness, like everything else, can’t occur in the future. It only happens right now because that’s the only place life happens. When we expect and wait for a future to bring us happiness we’re trampling the nature of presence just as it is, in the very footsteps we take.

It’s not about looking toward where the footsteps are heading but about the feel of the footsteps as we take them. Happiness in being with someone, as in life in any form, is simply seeing life just as it is, unfolding right now in the simplicity of THIS, the only thing that ever is, moment by moment. It’s not about futurizing with questions such as “Where will this lead?” In presence there is no future to be concerned about. We let the future take care of itself.

When you let go of “dating” and just be with a friend in the moment you may find you're a lot more relaxed and much more able to just “be”, without having to “be someone special". The stress is gone, the inner joy of just being is what’s left. Pretty good, don’t you think?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer