Men: quit looking for your mother. Learn to do stuff on your own. Go to work, and when you come home, help your wife (or husband) with the kids and running the household. Listen to her and appreciate all she does. Don’t just pick up the remote and ignore her.
And sometimes size does matter.
Explain What the Word Love Truly Means
I have to say it’s really subjective. What love means to you may not mean the same to me. To me, love is about respect and humor and light. Being light, and being light around people. Now, that may not be what it means to you. It may mean being Cinderella, and a guy comes and sweeps you off your feet. Your ideal may be sharing lots of things, conversations, a love of art or music or culture—love of things that make your lives better. Love may mean a deep emotional connection or a spiritual connection to someone. You have to decide what love is for you, and figure out if you’ve ever felt it or think you’ve felt it… or maybe you haven’t.
I felt it once. I was in love once, and it was fantastic. He wasn’t in the same business as me, and he ended up dying of AIDS, which is one of the most painful things I ever experienced. So at this point in my life, I say I won’t ever do it again. It’s very tedious and it requires a lot of being there for the other person. That’s what it meant then, but when you really love someone, that is what you do. Sometimes it seems like an irrational thing and you will do things you wouldn’t do for anyone else.
Yes, I’ve had a lot of wonderful relationships, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve decided I don’t want that anymore. At different stages of your life, love can mean different things; it can take many different forms. I have my daughter, my grandchildren, and my great-granddaughter. These are my main connections, my main loves. What it also means? One cat, and my house, which smells like a house without someone else in it.
Why Get into a Relationship?
I don’t know. At the start, they are a lot of fun, there is a lot of excitement and hope and getting to know one another. There is, of course, the companionship, having someone to do things with, the conversation, the connection. But you need to go into it without expectations, without planning your entire future after the second date. The whole process is really about making a new friend, and then deciding whether you like that friend enough to do the work that a relationship eventually requires.
As I said in the previous answer, I’m not keen on relationships myself these days, because they require a lot of work that I actually don’t want to do. If you feel that you want a partner, and you want to go through life with someone else who can balance you, or argue with you, or cry with you, or laugh with you, and you want it to be more than your cat, then you’re probably ripe for a relationship.
If you’re not willing to do the work, which requires a bridge, requires you to give and for the other person to give to you, if you’re not willing to hear why he’s upset, if you’re not willing to hear all the things that you need to hear in a relationship, then maybe it’s not for you.
That’s why I’m not in one—because I’m really someone who needs to figure out what the cat wants. I spend a lot of time in the cat box.