It just got cold in here0

In my years I have learned to choose my battles. Professionally and personally – if you are constantly fighting you will be disappointed a lot. It’s wise to stick to the cause that will directly affect your life in a big way.

When it comes to personal life, I don’t call them fights as much as grand gestures.  The grand gesture is meant to be a catalyst – something that causes something important to happen.  They can be big, and they can be small – but they are tailored especially for the person.  They may come off as a bit loco, even.  Riding a pretty rockin’ phenylethylamin surge, you are absolutely, positively pretty sure that they will be received well, because you think you know them.

If they don’t work, your catalyst turns into a cataclysm – cutting you apart from the inside.  For this reasons, these gestures are few and far between; I think I’ve done this… three times in my life.  Each seems to set the pace for the years that follow.

These days in dating, it’s simpler for me to put a lot of stock in the notion of causality.  That is, if you are interested in someone, and you make arrangements and adjustments or reach out beyond your comfort zone, you are doing your part to find out if there is something there.  If the other person feels the same way, she will do the same.  If she doesn’t – she leaves you in an unfamiliar place – doesn’t put in the effort to reschedule – you can surely bet that it’s time to move forward and don’t look back.  She is Ms. Frosty Flakes… you’re not missing out on much.

Logically, it makes sense.  If the cause doesn’t match the effect, there is resistance and the flow is not natural.  Real love though, is anything but logical.  Following the unsuccessful grand gesture… Neil Gaiman illustrates better than I ever could of what actually is going on:

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like “maybe we should be just friends” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love. ~Neil Gaiman

You don’t look back – you don’t see her again unless she runs in front of you to get your attention… which has never happened.  My dearest of ex’s taught me this: while dating, you meet a lot of people you could probably live with.  Allow people to surprise you.  You have to try!  However, the grand gestures belong to the ones you think that maybe, just maybe… you can’t live without.