Getting over loves rejection and starting from scratch
How to tell if you're in love? Possible?
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about love on the Internet!
If you are suddenly single after a marriage or a
long-term relationship, you may feel awkward and
confused upon your reentry into the dating world.
You're not alone. Dating requires a particular kind of
social and emotional muscle, and these muscles can
atrophy without use. With a little warming up and some
specific exercises, you will soon be back at your peak
dating performance and reaping your due romantic
benefits. Like any ambitious exercise regimen though,
ambivalence, inconsistency, and low-energy won't get
you the results you desire. Follow the steps below to
effectively put yourself back into the dating game.
Wrap Up Any Lingering Business From Your Past
Relationship
Unfinished business from a prior relationship is a
bigger obstacle to healthy new relationships than many
of us realize. You may have suffered some degree of
loss when your last relationship ended. It's important
to let yourself experience the ensuing grief and all
the feelings associated with it. This takes time.
Don't date for emotional revenge, to prove your
eligibility, or to abate feelings of loneliness. Date
when you are emotionally unencumbered by any prior
relationship. Remember too that maintaining
responsibilities and patterns from a past relationship
can send signals of unavailability. Does he continue
to make payments on your car and then expect to borrow
it on weekends? Does she still keep clothes and
exercise equipment at your house? Do you still call
each other, just to check in, every Sunday morning?
Make a decision. It's impossible to hold on and let go
at the same time.
Get Your Life In Good Working Order
A new romantic partner won't fix what is broken in
your day-to-day life. It may temporarily distract you
from any pending disasters, but it isn't a solution.
Eventually, disasters happen. Take a look at your
career, home, family, and relationships with friends:
• Is everything in good working order?
• Are you in a healthy emotional state?
Make sure you feel sane and happy and that your
behavior is honest, open, and free from manipulation.
Clean up the mess in your house before inviting
company over. Everyone will have a better time.
There's nothing sexier or more attractive than a
successful, healthy and happy person. They have a
certain self confidence and air of irresistibility
about them. Be one.
Give Yourself A Makeover
Your appearance is important, especially in the early
dating stages. As much as we want to be loved for who
we are on the inside, the outside package can make or
break a budding romance. When you look your best you
also feel your best. New relationships are
opportunities for fresh starts. Now is the perfect
time to repackage yourself. How?
• Color your hair and get a daring, stylish cut.
• Try some new makeup.
• Get a manicure.
• Experiment with a different cologne or perfume.
• Lose those ten pounds and get that definition
you've always wanted.
• After you've shaped up, treat yourself to some new
clothes, preferably something you can wear on a first
date.
Have some fun with the process and enjoy the results.
Determine The Qualities You Desire In A Mate
Make a list of the qualities and characteristics your
next lover must possess. Try to avoid the
obvious--tall, dark, and handsome--and instead look at
issues of compatibility, communications style,
behavior traits, interests, energy, life goals,
relationship goals, personality, and intelligence.
Keep your expectations high (you deserve a quality
partner), but also realistic. Divide your preferences
into two categories: "must have" and
"preferred."
Once you've mulled over the list, get out an eraser
and eliminate half the preferred criteria and move a
few of your must haves over to preferred. Finally,
list your attributes in order of priority. Remember,
while it's unlikely that anyone will have all of your
required attributes, many potential dates will show up
offering qualities you haven't considered but may come
to truly appreciate. Allow yourself to be pleasantly
surprised.
Remind Yourself That You Have A Lot To Offer
Deep inside we are all beautiful and remarkable people
who deserve the joys and many treasures that life and
love can provide. Unfortunately, many of us have
forgotten who we really are and how uniquely lovable
that person is. Stay away from the comparison game.
It's rigged. You seldom seem to be enough, or have
enough and consequentially, you tend to come out the
loser. Sometimes, after an unhappy relationship ends,
we walk away with a temporarily damaged self-esteem.
We forget how much we have to offer the world and what
great catches we really are. The real you isn't the
same as your ex-lover's bitter perspective of you. Ask
your friends for some input. Remind yourself how
special you are until it becomes second nature. Your
relationship may have failed, but your life hasn't.
Come "Out" As A Single Person
Many loving relationships are the result of amateur
matchmaking by a mutual friend or associate. If you
are recently single after a lengthy marriage or
relationship, you may continue to be perceived as
"off the market." Set the record straight.
Announce to the world that you are single, available,
and looking. Casually mention to your neighbors that
you are dating again. Let your family know that you're
ready to meet someone new. Remove anything that might
be mistaken as an engagement or wedding ring. Take
pictures of the ex off your desk, out of your wallet,
and off the walls at home. Feelings of shame or
failure about being single don't serve you. Get over
them. You're in some very good company and finally in
a position to meet someone terrific.
Make A Plan And Go For It
Develop well-thought strategies for finding a partner
and devote yourself and your time to the effort. Dig
in--dating requires some work, but it can also be a
lot of fun. What can you do?
• Post an alluring Match.Com profile.
• Commit to sending at least one email to a new anon
each day.
• Attend all the real world parties you are invited
to.
• Have a party of your own and ask everyone to bring
one single friend of the appropriate gender.
• Join clubs.
• Go to dances.
• Flirt with people you meet at the grocery store.
• Get rejected.
• Date as many eligible singles as possible.
Become friends with some of your dates. Friends have
friends of their own, one of whom might be your future
life partner. Continue to evaluate your efforts and
fine-tune your strategy. Stay in the game and don't
stop until you're in the relationship you desire.
When sparks fly between two people, we're quick to say they have
"chemistry." Not everyone realizes that such couples literally have
do have chemistry--it's what's behind those sweaty palms, the jumpy stomach,
thumping heart, and nervous jitters. Chemistry also contributes to that warm,
comfortable feeling you get from being with a longtime partner.
In the mid-1960's, psychologist Dorothy Tennov surveyed 400 people about what
it's like to be in love. Many of her respondents talked about fear, shaking,
flushing, weakness, and stammering. Indeed, when human beings are attracted to
one another, it sets off quite a chain reaction in the body and brain. But
there's a perfectly logical explanation to those intense feelings.
The most well-known love-related chemical is phenylethylamine -- or
"PEA" -- a naturally occurring trace ammine in the brain. PEA is a
natural amphetamine, like the drug, and can cause similar stimulation. This
natural upper contributes to that kick-up-your-heels, on-top-of-the-world
feeling that attraction can bring, and gives you the energy to stay up all
night talking to a new love. Sometimes this energy translates into the
triple-espresso jitters; other times it simply keeps you wide-eyed and alert
long past the time when you'd usually be yawning. "I always get excited
about somebody who can keep me up late at night," says Elan Freydenson of
New Jersey. "I really value my sleep."
Feeling Dopey
You can also get a non-romantic dose of PEA from high-intensity activities like
skydiving, or by eating chocolate. According to Chocolate.org, chocolate
contains small amounts of our love drug, PEA. That might be why some people use
chocolate as "comfort food," getting the same warm, relaxed feeling
from chocolate as others do from Mom's chicken soup.
One of the substances released by PEA is the neurochemical dopamine. A recent
study done at Emory University shows that female voles (small rodents) choose
their mates in response to dopamine being released in their brains. When
injected with dopamine in a male vole's presence, the female will pick him out
of a crowd later. Our love food, chocolate, also elevates levels of dopamine in
the brain.
In turn, Dopamine stimulates the production of oxytocin, sometimes known as
"the cuddle chemical." Oxytocin is best known for its role in
mothering, stimulating contractions during labor and aiding with breast
feeding. According to BirthPsychology.com scientists now think that both
genders release this nurturing hormone when touching and cuddling, with the
oxytocin level peaking during orgasm.
Another euphoria-inducing chemical in your brain, norepinephrine, stimulates
the production of adrenaline and makes your blood pressure soar when near the
person you're attracted to. That's why you might experience a pounding heart or
sweaty palms when you see someone you've got the hots for.
What The Brain Tells the Body
How do our emotions get translated into physical sensations? A U.S. News and
World Report article explains the importance of the vagus, a nerve that threads
through your whole body. It transports signals from your brain to your organs,
"setting the heart pounding, making the stomach do flip-flops, and of
course, lighting the loins on fire." Everyone knows that jumpy, sort of
sick feeling in your stomach. Some people call it a "hollow" feeling,
while Elan Freydenson describes it this way: "That weird feeling falls
somewhere between my belly button and my heart. It feels like tension building,
yet it feels great and I want to have that feeling more often."
Tennov's group also reported "intrusive thinking," where it seems
like your brain is fixated on the object of your affection. When your heart
rules your head, there's actually one part of your brain running the other: the
cortex is the area of your brain that controls logical thinking, while emotions
are processed by the limbic system. When too many happy chemicals like PEA and
dopamine flood your brain, they head straight for the limbic system.
When The Honeymoon's Over
Some scientists believe that after a certain period, from 18 months to 4 years,
one's body gets used to these love stimulants. After building up a tolerance to
uppers like PEA, passionate romances can cool into what Helen Fisher, author of
"Anatomy of Love" calls "attachment." In this phase of the
relationship, your brain produces endorphins, brain opiates more like morphine
than speed. "Unlike PEA," says Fisher, "they calm the mind, kill
pain, and reduce anxiety." So what some people call "separation
anxiety" might actually be a form of drug withdrawal.
The idea that the "honeymoon period" of a relationship is fueled by
different brain chemistry than what is present during the mellower years that
come later might explain why some people can't seem to hold long-term
relationships: they prefer the revving-up affects of brain amphetamines to the
pain-killing effects of endorphins.
"Divorce rates peak around the fourth year of marriage," says Charles
Panati in his book "Sexy Origins and Intimate Things." "The
initial 'highs' of love have lost their chemical underpinnings Marilyn Monroe's
classic film "The Seven Year Itch" should be retitled 'The Four Year
Itch."
Lynn Harris, co-creator of BreakupGirl.com wonders if it's the other way
around. "Relationships take work. They just do. And people get lazy after
a while," she says. "So do they get lazy because they're getting
immune to the chemicals, or do they get lazy because they just do...which
triggers a decline in the chemicals?"
In the end, even hard-core scientists agree that chemistry isn't everything.
Culture, circumstances, personality, and scores of other variables help decide
who turns your head and who leaves you cold. So don't try to reproduce that
lovin' feeling in a basement chemistry lab--but do try your best to enjoy the
natural highs that life gives you.
Love and Relationships - Online Dating - Sex and Romance
Anyone who's ever had a brush with the thing called love knows that this
feeling so desired is also tough to pin down. There are so many kinds. We've
got lusty love, companionate love, fraternal love, the kind of love you have
for your grandparents, thrilling love, young love, self love, and love mixed in
with a lot of pain-and many more. How can we survive a relationship with all
these different forms of love floating around? If you can't survive the change,
you'd better learn, since relationships are filled with love that's
ever-changing.
Love's Frontier
You start out a relationship with tons of passionate love, with lots of lust
mixed in. New love feels like you're climbing a mountain-thrilling, with lots
of new territory to explore with every step. As the relationship endures (if
you're lucky enough to have it endure) you'll begin to grow to know each other
more deeply. Then love deepens, too, broadening into a 'best-friend' and
companion-style love. No doubt the lusty, new love is still there, but starts
to get filled out by these other feelings.
It's when love starts to change form that some people can't cope; they sense
the shift as a loss of passion. They sense a reduction in passion, which to
them means that something's wrong with the relationship. But it doesn't have to
be that way.
When you feel yourself moving over into the companionate sort of love, just
relax. It's not easy, but try to let the relationship exist at its level. It
takes some getting used to but as you may soon find you enjoy it, too. This
phase I have affectionately termed The Plains of Kansas. On the Plains, you are
definitely no longer in the mountains of love/lust, with all that unexplored,
exciting territory, where each step takes you around a new corner, over a new
rock. But The Plains of Kansas have their own charms and benefits-you'll just
have to look a litter harder for what's interesting there, see a little
farther. You're in a place that seems to go on forever, with no apparent
markers or change in landscape. But if you pay attention to the details, you'll
find plenty to keep you interested.
Dizzying Love
Of course, the thrill of falling in love has its ups and downs two. As love
swells up then changes in a relationship, so does your sanity level-or so it
seems. On the first date, maybe you feel some of your senses slipping away,
"melting into her eyes." After a month you may think, "I don't
feel right when we're apart." But you never had that problem before. And
of course, it doesn't feel like too serious a problem to have. It is part of
the thrill of love.
Let's face it. Partners complicate our lives. First, we're driven nearly crazy
with the heady rush to love. Our friends will wonder what's happened to us.
Then, after a few more dates, a few more weeks, both men and women wonder
neurotically, often desperately:"What if she doesn't like me as much as I
like her?"... "Am I being used?"... "Is he going to pull
away just when I'm falling in love?"... "How much will a breakup hurt
me?" Not pleasant thoughts. But we've all experienced them at least
momentarily as we embark down the road to coupledom.
Love can get even more complicated the longer you're in it. For instance,
lovers tend to know more than anyone about our weaknesses and our strengths,
our dreams and our worries. We allow them in and give them Knowledge. It takes
a while-at least a few months-for this Knowledge to build up. But it will.
Be happy that Knowledge can be used for good, to build us up and make us feel
stronger, more secure, and happier. But partners also use Knowledge against us,
leaving us feeling vulnerable, sometimes abused. Being prepared for just how
many "buttons" are going to get pushed is important to keeping the
relationship going strong even during tough times. And all this happens because
of love.
So take love, in all its forms, and embrace it. At least try. Don't get scared
when you first start to realize that "some of the passion is gone,"
after the first month, or after the first year. Right around the corner is
another kind of love that brings its own rewards.
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your privacy
, always.
