Hey guys, this Wednesday, the Flirtology Hump Day post is a little different. The folks over at Readwave asked me to submit a short story, so I wrote this for them. It seems the community quite liked it and it became a trending article which meant it was moved to the home page. I hope you like it to and would welcome your feedback.
She is sitting across from me. She is pretty, smart, successful and dying to meet a man; perhaps it’s because she knows her clock is ticking, maybe it’s familial pressure, or maybe, just maybe, it is because she has been single for so long, that she believes her own fable that her life will be perfect, if only she had a partner.
I know her well, even though we have just met a few moments ago. I am the flirt coach and she is not the first, or the last, woman who will be sitting in that same chair. I want to shake her and tell her so many things: ‘you don’t need a partner to start being happy. Start living your life now; don’t pass on the chore of your happiness to someone else.’ Or ‘If you think once you have a partner your problems are solved and you won’t be lonely anymore, you are crazy. You might not be lonely, but you will have a whole host of other things to have to contend with, trust me!’
Sometimes, I do say these things, but usually I wait until they get to know me better. I have to show my intent is from the heart and comes from a place of love before I can get so blunt. I am the flirt coach, after all, not an insensitive brute.
In our fast-paced, instantaneous society, we can get whatever we want, whenever we want. Isn’t that the line we’ve been sold? Perhaps this applies to dry-cleaning, but it certainly doesn’t to love. This is one area, where instant access, does not apply, at least not if you want to do it properly. And these ambitious, successful, beautiful women are finally faced with a problem they can’t solve. Some of them try and throw money at it by outsourcing any ‘effort’ required to introduction agencies. I have to explain that you can’t leave something like this to a group of strangers, and that meeting someone is not as simple as a financial transaction. At least not for the type of role they are looking to fill. Others while away what little free time they have, turning to a lonely screen, stuck in the confines of their empty flat.
The picture I paint is depressing, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It is simply the road we have been told to follow, paved in its cheap, sparkly, discounted glitter. What’s the other option? Don’t go down that road; take the other path. When they try and usher you down it, under the guise of ‘your best interest’ and ‘everyone else is doing it’. Run, don’t walk, over to my path. It’s the path where you don’t need a partner to be happy, because your happiness and having a partner, are not mutually exclusive. Besides, another person is not responsible for your happiness; you are! Don’t mistake my words; I believe it is fine to have a partner, as long as you don’t put your life on hold until he comes around, and as long as you want a partner for the right reasons. A man is not a band-aid for your self-inflicted wounds that have never quite healed. He won’t fix everything just by his chromosomal presence. Although, you might want to check in advance if he is any good with a hammer.
So, when she sits across from me, already halfway down the cheap glitter road, although the glitter in her eyes is unmistakably absent, I urge her to try an alternate path, one where you can be happy, regardless of your co-habitation situation. As long as you know that you are the only one you need, you are the only one who can bring yourself happiness, than you are fine, whether you are single or coupled. True, most people won’t try this path; it’s just too different. It doesn’t have sparkles, and none of their friends are on it. But, take it from the flirt coach, it’s the path you want to be on. (And it has unlimited Haagen Daz, but don’t spread that around!)
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