Alexandria,

Never compromise your values, your morals and ethics. Especially when it comes to getting romantically involved with someone. Doing so leaves a crack in the door for manipulation. When some women friends of mine come to me with concerns and/or complaints they have about the guy they are involved with, I listen intently. One common denominator they have is their b/f’s or husbands behavior, and as strange as it may seem all have a common theme-gestures of seemingly immature behavior, some worse than others. The bottom line that I tell them, and I will tell you is this; you can expect immature behavior from guys/men from about 16-17 up into their late 20’s early 30’s. This is not to say all men, but I do know it is a common theme with a large number of them. I don’t know if it is a perceived threat to the hunter by the gatherer, the ‘me man – you woman’ syndrome, the ever popular Peter Pan Syndrome or what. My current thought is it is a combination of those and perhaps more. I know that reading that is not exactly exciting reading material, BUT knowing that is a HUGE help in finding someone special to be with. Is it safe for me to say that with regards to relationships you have hit that proverbial glass ceiling? If so I will tell you this too that I share with others. When you think about hitting that proverbial glass ceiling, go outside, perhaps tonight and look at the stars and it is there, what you see, is your glass ceiling.

Pearce

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by PearceHawk.

Flossy,

I’m sure that I can go on and on about this, and probably will later, but for now I would like to offer this. Texting is inherently problematic in so many ways. I have read studies that vary in conclusion but anywhere between 65-70% of texts are misunderstood. Texting depersonalizes communication, rendering human interaction one dimensional. Depending on what source you prefer to gravitate to, studies consistently sho that as much as two-thirds of all communications non verbal. All of that meaning-body language and facial expression is lost.

As of late I have chosen to go cell phone free for much of the day. The liberation I feel by doing that is one that feels like I reconnected with a long lost friend. My advice is to get in touch with this person, face to face or phone, and say that you want to share with each other better ways to communicate, that texting leads to misunderstandings. This is not to say to eliminate texting all together. Just reconnect with that long lost friend as I have. It’s amazing.

Pearce

Jack 🙂

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”  I think your post says it all Jack. There is much for many to learn from you my friend. Including myself so I thank you from my heart and Sul.

Pearce Hawk

KK,

While the thrill of the hunt can be exciting to those who enjoy the hunt often times it is a temporary fix for something lacking no matter who it is that is running the deficit. As the saying goes, the devil’s in the details, and there really is no way for us to know the details sans any one of us being involved. The verb cheating is used here to describe the husbands behavior yet there are a number of variables not mentioned, such as why he is cheating, what are the factors within the marriage that is impetus to cheating? Is what he is doing a reaction to her cheating? That DOES happen. But for conversation sake, let us just say he is cheating because of his cheating personality. Is there an ongoing effort on the front lines to repair whatever it is that is causing the cheating, i.e. her not being easy to live with? Did he cheat with someone before he met his wife? Did she become his wife as a result of potential cheating? With this alleged cheating on his current wife, the odds are against you that he will cheat on you. Just some random thoughts of mine to help me understand this phenomenon that seems to have been weaved into the fabric of our society. I don’t get it. Anyway, I never was one who accepted the idea of cheating being a vehicle to resolve any home based conflict. What people seem to ignore is not only one person in a relationship doing the cheating, but it also involves the one who that person is cheating with. To me, if a married couple is having such great difficulty in their marriage to justify cheating by one of them, not that I am a supporter of it-I AM NOT-there is the outlier nurturing that cheating, that being the other one who the cheater is cheating with. On many fronts this is ugly. I’m going to put myself in a make believe scenario for a second and paint a picture of what I mean-Here I am, a guy, who may or may not be somehow familiar with a couple who is having difficulty in their marriage. At one point, me and the married woman meet for drinks after work, or wherever. She soon describes to me what troubles her and her husband are having. Perhaps it is the alcohol doing the talking but she describes the troubles being more than what they really are leaving out her contribution to the ongoing troubles. After all half of a 1,000 is 500. Through her talk it seems like she is seeking out being rescued. She is looking for a safe place that provides what is missing at home. Me, on the other hand, see this as an opportunity to take advantage of her weakness and in by doing so I offer her sympathy, a warm hug, and we get intimately involved. As a result, she has found what she has been looking for, that which she has been lacking in her marriage due to ongoing unresolved issues, and I find strength, however fake, in thinking I am the rescuer, the hero. Wheels on the bus go round and round…In the mean time the person being cheated on is left home, wondering if he’ll come back, wondering if maybe that if he were at home they would have found an answer to their troubles. Perhaps there are children involved. If so think of tis African proverb a wonderful friend shared with me, “When the elephants fight it is only the grass that suffers.” If there are children involved, do not be a part of the equation that, in the end, it is the children that suffer. I think Eliana said the same thing with such honesty, clarity, and sincerity.

In that scenario, I am just as much at being at fault at creating a division between the 2 combatants as the one who initiated the cheating. KK let them work through it in such a way that is best for them. that resolution may come in the form of reconciliation, temporary separation to sort things out, or divorce. In any event, let it be.

Alexandria,

I think that the confusion on the part of others is an expression of their ignorance of the fact that you can be who you want to be, and are. I think that when people do this they are speaking from within narrow margins by which they live their life. Their judgements, their perceptions perhaps are molded by the dictates of morals, values, and social mores handed down to them since birth that when someone else’s lifestyle seem to “violate” their beliefs, we/you tend to get labelled. I am straight. Always have been. I wish I had a g/f too. I also have friends who are gay and lesbian. Sometimes someone will ask me if he or she is gay, referring to my friends. My answer is so what if they are? In your eyes how does that change me?

If someone I meet tells me they are gay or lesbian, I think to myself, I DO NOT CARE, and in a half joking way I will say to them, ” Oooooooo. I’m straight, but don’t tell anyone.” Many times I have been judged by others the same way you are. In fact, there were a few times where some friends of mine quit hanging out with me because they found out a friend of mine was gay.

Alexandria you have a huge heart and an immense soul. Haters will hate. I think that you have so much more balance in your life than those who have the need to judge you.

Pearce

Hi Sandy,

Please know that I am sending my thoughts with much love with the hope that you find comfort in my words and consider them to be helpful to you.

I must comment on what you said about “your anxiety got to an all time high  (which was likely my intuition)…” Here is my experience on intuition and please know that it is my experience. When I have gone against my intuition, whether  it be 1%, 50% or 100%, 100% of the time I have paid the price. Also, between men and women, size does matter. Before you assume anything please consider this. There is a part of the human brain called the corpus callosum. It is a region of the brain that connects the right hemisphere with the left. The difference in between the brain of men and women are many. But for the purpose of answering your question I will mention briefly about the different in size and observations of that difference. The corpus callous in women is larger than that of men, thus the size comment. There are many studies done on this difference, the literature is extensive, and there exists an overwhelming agreement among those in the biology/neurology/psychology field etc, that the intuition in women is attributed to a larger connection between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere of the brain within the corpus callosum. So when you say it’s a woman’s intuition, believe it to be real. I do. It has saved my butt many times.

There is a question about something you said…”One thing, however, was that a few months earlier he had gotten out of a very long relationship with an ex-girlfriend who had apparently cheated on him more than once.” I must ask this and please know it is not meant to doubt what you say. How do you know that in fact she did cheat on him? What was it that made it apparent? I ask this because there is a tendency of the cheater to gain pity by stating he/she was the one who cheated. If she did cheat why would he have  “seen his ex-girlfriend on the weekend?” Things just do not add up. For him to say, ” best of luck.” and when he continued to text and say “he felt a close connection but wanted all the best for me if he never saw me again.” to me has a dismissive tone to it. Maybe that word (dismissive) is a little too strong. You have some questions that are very legitimate, such as, “will he go back to her? Will it last? Will I ever see him again? Does he know how much he hurt me?”

Perhaps those questions will not be answered honestly. Will he go back to her? Maybe, maybe not. But that question has the potential to linger in the back of your mind should you become committed to a relationship with him. When you asked, “Will it last?” I don’t want to assume anything here so I must ask for clarification. When you asked if it will last, do you mean that it, the relationship, between her and him, or between both of you? If you mean to ask if it will last for both of them should they get back together, don’t wait around for your knight in shining armor with the hope that you can pursue a relationship should that one fail.   If you meant to ask if it (the relationship) would last for you, the weekend excursion he had with her, again, potentially will linger in the back of your mind causing stress, doubt, etc. Will you see him again? There exists the possibility for you to see him again, assuming you both live in close proximity in the same town. Should this happen, and you see him obviously attached with someone else, (holding hands etc) it would give you strength, I think, to wish them well, as hard as that may be. Maybe think in terms of, wow, two people found each other and they are happy. This gives you liberation knowing that you can open your heart to discovering a person that you truly want to be with. Does he know how much he hurt you? If he did, how would you think differently, assuming you did? Sometimes when a person does not know how badly they hurt someone, sometimes this hurt has not been conveyed in such a way that it would make them stop to think. Sometimes not knowing how badly someone hurt another shows just how disconnected they are to the one they hurt. And there are many other reasons too.

I think that you perhaps  “can’t seem to move forward” because the event is still new, fresh in your mind. Aside from being insensate, which I seriously doubt that you are, the feeling of being stalled out in a tailspin is a perfectly normal reaction.

We can all get philosophical and offer advice to you with the risk of adding confusion in your pursuit of answers. I have been hurt profoundly in the past, as many of us have. I too found myself seeking out answers that help me decide what to do, even to the point of thinking, will somebody please make up my mind for me as to what I should do. But I took all the advice I have been given, tossed out the knee jerk reactions, embraced some answers that I found hope in, and even combined the ones that seemed promising with what I thought was best for me to do. In the end, it was I who decided what is best for me and moved on only to discover that decision to move on proved to be invaluable to me, as difficult as it sometimes was.

For now I would like to offer that you set this relationship aside, such as it is, in a way that you think in terms of moving on. Go to a special private place that you feel safe to be in, a park, the beach, the lake, the mountain, wherever, and give it some serious thought. Be with your higher self, your spirit Sandy. Reconnect with who you are and think about what you deserve, that being so very happy and loved. It is the very least you deserve.

Sending you peace and love,

Pearce

Greetings Gavin,

Your post is one that made me think to myself, “WOW! It sounds like me at times.” I struggled with this for many years although at the time I was not fully aware of that momentum being a struggled. I always thought to myself, ” This is messed up. Oh well.” For me it was a normal state of being. It wasn’t until long after that, and I do not recall exactly when, I recognized that I really needed to understand what the heck was going on as I absolutely did not like it. It kind of reminded me of the many times people would tell me to just go with the flow, but only dead fish go with the flow. Knowing that I decided to put forth a HUGE effort that would lead me to an understanding of what I needed to change and why. On a side note I am reminded of a quote by a woman named Jeanette Winterson. She said, ” In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.” To this very day I try to remain connected to the meaning of this. Moving forward…I spent a number of years with some truly amazing people who helped me with my PTSD. As we dove deeper into my life the question of my cognitive abilities came up. The pursuit of that aspect of my life, who I was/am seemed odd to me but in the grand mosaic in the scheme of things it made sense to me. It is very important to me at this point that make clear that in my telling you this I am in no way doing any chest thumping or bragging. My IQ was tested at 134. The only thought I have about tis is, “So what?”. I graduated high school 2 years early at the age of 15. This was extremely awkward for me because the 15 year olds in high school were on track to graduate at 17-18. I felt very out of place with them. Conversely I did not feel to be a part of the ones who were on track to graduate at 17-18. So for me I was in a dead zone. I was bored in college. I graduated with a BS degree in microbiology in 3 years as opposed to 4. My first job was at Stanford in the microbiology department which I found to be very boring. I realized that for me that feeling of boredom was an immature reaction. So I decided to pursue my masters degree. Again boring. I got my masters degree and never returned to the academics of microbiology. I did many things after that and like you I felt unenthusiastic about pursuing things that I thought would fulfill my creativity and make me happy. By the way all this time I got involved in pottery making pottery on the wheel and free hand pottery. I have been told that much of my work was worthy of selling it commercially. I, like many artists, devalue the quality of my work telling those who admired it, “It’s not that great.” I recall that one time while attending a lengthy ongoing pottery workshop (3 months) our group had a chance to visit LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We brought along our portfolios of the work we had done to show the curator. Several of us in our group were invited to put 1 piece on display. Two days after I put one of my pottery objects on display, the curator called me and told me a German business wanted to buy one of my pieces. I offered it for free but he insisted on paying for it. Having spent roughly 3 hours of making it, using approximately $4.00 worth of clay and about $6.00 of glaze, and the cost hardly worth mentioning to fire it, he was delighted to pay me $350.00 for it. Again the artwork I made was no big deal so I donated the money to a homeless veterans project. I think that now would be a good segue for me to make my point…

For quite a while now I understand what Jeanette Winterson said when she shared her quote, specifically when she used the words “space ” and ” opportunity.”  For me, that space of opportunity was one I had not recognized. I realize the importance of that now. That space is an opportunity for me to keep my fingers on the pulse of my life, where I am going, what I am constantly learning. I realized that my happiness does not hinge on some outside locus of control, that it is only found within me. That space of opportunity allows me to embrace my happiness and creativity, that I do not have to rely on any outside entity to make that happen. It reminds me of a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: ” The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”  I do not dwell on what I could have/should have/would have ideas. I think about now. It also sounds cliche’ for me to say I live the now. After all, that is all we have. Not 1 hour from now, not tomorrow or next week, but now. All I have is that space of opportunity. My ideas do not pay the bills but it is within that space that my creativity flourishes, it is where I nurture my happiness.

In reading your post it is obvious to me that you are indeed a very creative person and I also suspect, although there is a very good chance that I am wrong, that you undervalue your creativity, your art as in the way that I devalue mine. If people like my artwork, great. If not, so what. There is more to create.

I am not sure if you find any value in what I said. There is only one thing I have tooter, for now at least. Spend some time in that space my friend. Try not to put your creativity on hold or find happiness in some external locus of control. You have all you need my friend. It is inside you. Nobody can match that.

Pearce

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by PearceHawk.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by PearceHawk.

Dear Myles,

What an intense lifeline to say the least. It saddens me to no end knowing that even to this day, this century, that so much hate and prejudice is alive and well. Incidentally the license plate on my car reads NEG8H8. It is not that difficult to figure out except for a few. So my license plate frame explains it…NEGATE HATE…thought I’d throw that in…I often times ask myself why there is so much of that going on that there is no singular reason. I think there are as many reasons for hate and prejudice to exist as there are as many people that do. There are also just as many reasons to love as there are as many people that do. My latest thought as to why these two particular personalities of society exist is because hate and prejudice are internalized in such a way that it seems to be the norm as a result of being exposed to it from infancy. Imagine a world where people take the time to stop and think and look at the inventory of thoughts and emotions within themselves, and question whether or not their hate and prejudices have any value, and come to the point that they actually have no value. They only serve to polarize us from one another. As a child growing up, I went through many years of anger and judgement as a result of constant exposure of it from my step-father. After taking a step back and carefully looking at it, how I looked at people, how it affected me, I decided NO! I will not have this cancerous demon to be part of me. I realized before that my negativity was nurtured by the very “friends” I chose, just to “fit in.” As a result of rejecting this useless thought process of hate and prejudice, I found myself not only without those “friends” but I was very open to welcome some amazing people in my life, which continues to this day. Haters will hate my friend. As long as there are haters, there will be people to hate and there is nothing I can do about it except live my life and hopefully set an example. Looking at my inner self, which I constantly do in order to maintain balance, I still fine tune myself by getting rid of residual “trash” lingering and so I take that “trash” out. I feel good too. Writing this I think of John Lennon’s song, IMAGINE. Very relevant today as it was back then. Anyway, maybe take some time to be by yourself, perhaps by a pond or a park or mountain and do a quality control inventory of your self and ask yourself if there is anything you can change for you, for the better. We all need to do that. Like I said, I still do. Love yourself even more my friend. Your acute awareness of your life and how you have been impacted by events seems to be very active as you are making your journey. Be kind to yourself, love yourself, and this will become infectious. Enjoy a perfect day my friend. Looking forward to more of what you have to say.

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…

John Lennon

Wishing you love, peace, and happiness

Pearce