Sex and the Single Girl

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Sex and the Single Girl

In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown wrote a best-selling novel titled, Sex and the Single Girl. She was a vocal advocate of women’s sexual freedom and her fashion-focused magazine, Cosmopolitan,  claimed that women could have it all – “love, sex, and money.”  She coined the phrase, “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere” as she focused on the self-made, ambitious, glamorous, unashamed, and sexual model for the successful and full-filled woman.  It is reasonable to say that women had as much right and freedom to determine their own path in life as their male counterparts and not to treated as anything less, but it is interesting to see if this path Helen Gurley Brown has help to pave has been a healthy one for today’s young woman.  Her coined phrase has certainly seemed to pit God’s plan against her own vision.

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Is marriage really meant to be forever?

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Is marriage really meant to be forever?

What things in life are a bigger deal than marriage?  Who will we spend our life with?  Who will we share our most intimate moments with?  We take that excitement of falling in love and courting into our journey of life with our best friend and partner “through good times and bad, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, all the days of our lives.”  Few would argue with that vow and commitment on the day of their wedding, but many feel differently after the feelings of discontentment, boredom, or even animosity begin to seep in to the relationship.  We “fall” out of love, we split up,  we deserve to be happy, we look for another to marry and start a new life with together.  As we made that first commitment or vow to each other for life, the question is if that vow was intended to be real or just a romantic notion?  Was marriage intended to be forever, even if the feelings of love wear off or things become challenging?

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What is love?

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What is love?

What is love?  A good question for St. Valentine’s Day, but I am not sure the Roxbury Guys from Saturday Night Live would really be the right ones to ask.  The dictionary defines love as “an intense feeling or deep affection” or to “feel deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.”  Wikipedia says, “Love is a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure.  It can refer to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment.”  While those definitions point to the intense high we can feel when beginning a romantic relationship, something seems missing when you think about the depth of what love is really all about.  On a day where men and woman are either searching for someone to love, trying to hold on to that feeling of love they once had, or wondering if they will never have that love that will last, it may not be bad idea to understand how we think of love.

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Fun and laughter for your relationships

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Fun and laughter for your relationships

Even science tells us that laughter and playfulness creates social bonds, increases well-being, reduces pain and anxiety, and can be a positive to those around us.  Laughter can make people feel safer, more relaxed and more connected to those we interact with. Laughter and humor increases our capacity to learn, to be creative, to cope and deal with the difficulties of life and to create stronger social bonds. There are research studies that show that when children laugh, it enhances their attention, perception, motivation, memory,  and learning.   A sense of humor, laugher and play can help to also reduce depression and stress and increase our actual pain tolerance by as much as 50%. Taking time to play and laugh is a way of expressing inner joy. 

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All the days of my life

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All the days of my life

Is there anything better than the excitement of the early dating period with someone that makes you feel like you are walking on air?  I loved dating my wife and then the adventure of those first years of marriage, but, as I glance up from writing this blog at Joanne after over thirty years together, I know that right now is something profoundly better that I am lucky enough to experiencing.  I love and appreciate my wife so much more now because I have begun to understand what both marriage and true love really are.  Okay, so I may be a slow learner but I can tell you that it is a great feeling to be excited about the next thirty years of sharing this journey with the woman I love, my best friend and my partner for life.

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Can't Buy Me Love

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Can't Buy Me Love

When I was a young kid growing up in Lynn, Massachusetts, I probably didn't realize it but it was one of the poorer cities in the state.  I was eight years old and I can remember walking over to the record store on Market Street to buy my first record, Can't Buy Me Love.  As much of a Beatles fan as I was, who would have thought that they would have gotten me thinking about my priorities in life?  (Of course, my older brother gave me a hard time a few years later for getting Johnny Cash’s A Boy Names Sue over the Rolling Stone’s Honky Tonk Woman – so I can’t say I my musical taste was overly discerning. )  I probably bought Can’t Buy Me Love because I thought the song was fun but there was something about the lyrics of the song that did hit home though, even in those early years.

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September 13, 1986

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September 13, 1986

I met a beautiful, fun, intelligent and friendly girl named Joanne in the fall of 1985.  On our first evening date, we enjoyed a fun dinner and a movie.  It was such a nice evening when I brought her home that we went for stroll and ended up on a small bride over the Charles River and watched the stars overhead.  Back in front of her apartment we had our first kiss and I will never forget that look in Joanne’s eyes.  It was a look that has stayed with me and made me smile until this very day. 

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