187. Trust what is and you’ve got all the dating security you could ever want

Dating, especially in our senior years – or maybe even more so in our senior years – often includes having a lot of expectations and hopes. Dating of this kind isn’t free and fun. It’s loaded with stress. The man or woman who’s dating with expectations is always on guard, watching to see if those expectations are being fulfilled: Did he kiss me warmly when we met or was it just a peck on the lips? Did she sound really interested when I suggested spending a weekend together or was it just a polite response? He didn’t even tell me I looked nice and he usually does; I wonder what that means?

Analyzing and qualifying and expecting and hoping don’t leave us free to just enjoy the moment as it is. What if, instead, you could just trust that life is always exactly as it is. If the weather is rainy it’s supposed to be rainy of course. How could it be other than what it is? If your lady doesn’t seem enthusiastic about going away for a weekend, there’s no mistake. To you she doesn’t seem enthusiastic. And, by the way, that doesn’t even mean she’s not. You may have misinterpreted. To find out, all you have to do is ask.

When you trust life to be exactly the way it is in every moment you’re never disappointed. You want security? This is security: You can always depend on life being what it is. Simple. If you don’t believe your thoughts you needn’t have hopes or expectations, or even fears. Those are all futurizing thoughts and the future hasn’t arrived yet, have you noticed? The future is an illusion. But this moment?... ah, this moment is alive, crackling with energy, surprising us with its next move. We can either notice it and delight in it… or not. It’s the only thing that’s real. Why not live in the contentment of reality rather than in a painful fantasy land?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

186. Are you content and happy when you think your date should change?

Dating seems to be wired into most of us. We like being connected with another person in an intimate, close, sharing way. Like an apple tree “apples”, as one sage used to say, humans “people”. That people-ing begins with the natural urge to join. Well, so far so good, huh?

But in joining we usually pretty quickly see problems with our partner or our date. We think – in at least a few ways – they should be different. We want them to change. Ah, we’ve just created hurt for ourselves. We’ve forgotten to notice that the times when we’re happy in life are the times when we don’t think anything needs to change. These times of total acceptance may be momentary, as when we’re watching a gorgeous sunrise, or totally engaged and lost in a project, or completely present while making love. But they’re there.

What do those moments tell us? Don’t they tell us we’re content with life when we’re allowing it to be just the way it is? Does our date or partner really need to be different? Guess what? If we think they need to be different, we need to be different: we need to not judge them because we’re the ones who suffer when we judge. If they don’t suit us we can always move away. But does real love include thinking we should change someone? Does that give us joy or peace or fun in dating?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

185. Is there actually such a thing as a relationship problem?

Words are often misleading. Language is tricky because it makes something appear to be real that has no reality. For example, we talk about a baseball team. That word “team” seems to be real. But what is a team, really? It’s not an entity, it’s not a thing. It’s a word to define a bunch of people who work together. When the people aren’t working together any more where is the team? It doesn’t exist, because it actually never did.

The word “relationship” is like “team” in the sense that it’s a word defining something that doesn’t really exist as an entity. It’s not a solid object, like “table” or “ball” or “person”. Most of the time these defining words serve a useful purpose in communicating. But they can also be deceiving because we treat them as real and assign labels to them – labels like “good” or “bad”. In dating you hear people say, “We have a problem in our relationship.”

But a relationship can’t have a problem. Only one or both people who are together in what’s called a relationship can have a problem. Even defining the word “problem” can be a problem. Ted thinks Laurie has a problem because, let’s say, she drinks too much. But if Laurie doesn’t think she drinks too much does she have a problem? No, only Ted has a problem. His problem is the suffering he causes himself by thinking Laurie drinks too much. So you’ve got a “problem” in your relationship if you’re suffering. That’s the definition of problem – you have a problem if you’re hurting.

If you’ve got a so-called problem in your relationship look and see who’s hurting. Obviously it’s you if you’re suffering. Who then needs to solve the problem? Only the one who has it can solve it. Your partner, too, may be hurting and it would be up to him to resolve his problem. But your “relationship” can never have a problem. If you think the relationship has a problem you’re making something “out there” responsible for your suffering. There’s no solution when a word – relationship – is treated like a thing because that illusory “thing” can’t be fixed. It doesn’t exist.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

184. Mature dating is a fun adventure when you keep one thing in mind

An East Indian sage who died in recent years used to say, “Why do people want what they don’t have? Why not just want what you do have and be happy?” Most of us would scoff at that idea. We’d say that’s a stupid statement because obviously we’re not happy with only what we have or of course we wouldn’t want something more. But have you noticed that life is like the weather? It happens as it happens. Same with dating. We don’t really control things, even though we’ve been conditioned to think we do.

Life is pretty simple to see when you investigate a bit. Actions apparently come from choices we make. Choices come from “our” thoughts. Thoughts come from … oh-oh… where do they come from? We don’t decide what to think next. Thoughts just appear don’t they? We can’t even shut off thinking when we want to. Thinking happens. Seems strange doesn’t it?

But is that any more strange than asking where gravity comes from? Or blue sky? Or the universes? Or gray rocks? Whatever is your answer you know one thing: we’re not the authors. We didn’t create universes or gravity or blue sky or the thoughts that supposedly guide our actions. So where is our control?

Does nature try to control anything? Do animals live in stress because life isn’t going “their” way? Maybe it does, after all, make sense to live as the saints and sages have propounded for centuries, simply seeing life as it really is without imposing our story of how it should be. It’s only that story we make up that causes us suffering. Dating is a good place for story-making don’t you think?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer