This Is Living

Mesmerized by the shallow turquoise crystal clear waters as they sweep the powder soft white sand shore over and over again, admiring the myriads of blues and greens as the coral just beneath the surface colors the clear ocean, relaxing on one of the top rated beaches in the world, I sit and think about how this is living. Repelling down an 80 foot waterfall and zip-ling through the rainforest, I think about how this is living. Watching the sun slowly sink in the azure blue sky littered by fluffy white clouds from between the swaying palm trees, kayaking through a pitch black labyrinth of trees, savoring the view over the inky black bay of the planetarium-like night sky awash with twinkling stars and bright constellations, swimming in the warm ocean with the tropical electric blue, purple, and yellow fish and orange and yellow coral...this is living.

Still on a high from reveling in these captivating nifla'os ha'boreh, I think about how so often we experience the world in black and white. We let so much grime build up on the lenses through which we see the world that we're no longer really living; we're grinding. We lock ourselves in this cage and beat at it repeatedly, trying fruitlessly to get out, never realizing that the door is not locked.

Especially at this stage in life, it's not difficult to fall into this mindset that we need a spouse to feel good, to move forward, to feel successful. There is so much in this life besides for that. There's a whole world out there, and it was created for us. It's not just about having a relationship/getting married (which is great, but we don't control when that's going to happen). When you're stuck just surviving, it's easy to feel like you need something to save you from the daily grind, but that is why it is so important to go and see and do and experience the world in whichever way speaks to you. Nature, travel, activities...is my thing. What's yours?

Scoring on a Rebound

Can a rebound be the real deal?

Seeking comfort after a heartbreaking, perhaps severely distressing, experience in which you may be questioning yourself, your self-worth, your desirability, etc., is completely normal. These feelings of vulnerability and loneliness can be staunched by connecting with someone new, even if this person isn't right for you. In situations where emotions are heightened, it is common for people to confuse their feelings for something different. (For more of a discussion about this, refer to my "Love At First Sight" post.)

What goes through people's heads' who date someone seriously, perhaps for long drawn out periods of time, dump her/him, and then get engaged to the next suitor, a mere few weeks later? Is this pure rebound science? Are people in these relationships happily married?

Science suggests that rebound relationships can definitely help people heal from a breakup, because being in a relationship (presumably any relationship) promotes higher self-esteem, attachment security, and all those good things that come from healthy relationships. However, when someone is clinging to a relationship only because s/he wants to feel wanted and the relationship is all wrong, this backfires. Therefore, when people marry a rebound, often the foundation of the relationship is critically damaged. It's the same kind of situation that results from someone trying to fill a need in himself/herself by marrying someone that has that specific characteristic. For example, if John himself wants to be (or wants to be seen as) more confident and/or assertive, he may be looking to marry someone who is all that.

However, your spouse is not your cure-all. Two complete people are needed in a relationship for that relationship to work (in a healthy manner). You cannot marry someone just because s/he fills a need. I mean, you can, but that relationship is going to have holes in it, and it's going to take a lot of work to make that healthy and fulfilling in the long run.
If you weren’t willing to settle for your ex, you’re a fool to settle for your rebound.I'm no stranger to this phenomenon of rebound relationships...at least being the party from whom the rebounder is rebounding...Recently, a friend of mine had the same situation. The guy she dated seriously, who said he likes to take things slow and work relationships out slooowly, got engaged a very short time after they broke up.

The only thing I can think of is that something that didn't click with the last relationship, clicked with the new one. What didn't feel right after months of dating, obviously felt right with the kallah.

I have a friend who married her rebound, and she's happily married. When she was dating her husband, it was "so clear" to me that it was a rebound, but somehow it worked out for her, and she really just believes the right one came on the heals of the very wrong one. It could happen.

Dating Like A Boss

You know how they say that confidence is one of the most attractive traits? Perhaps there is a median here. Sure, confidence lends people poise, charm, assertiveness, and those, by definition, draw people to someone. It's also about if you are self-assured and you like yourself, it's easy for others to like you. However, arrogance and cockiness is not attractive in the least bit.

Having confidence about something that is not true, like when someone thinks s/he's smart, attractive, with-it, etc. and s/he is not, that is the quintessential turn-off. Also, many arrogant people operate from a place of ego. Under their mask, they aren't really confident, so they work hard to make up for it.

Not everyone finds confidence so attractive though. Many people are intimidated by it. Either they question what the confident person sees in them, because that confident person seems to have it all together, or they wonder if they will ever be able to measure up. 

There is an added element with dating. Confident singles are direct, smile, make eye contact and speak with warmth and interest. They make it obvious that they’re interested, and so it's easy to like them because you know where you stand with them. 

Interestingly, in a study done at Webster University, the researchers found that the girls who got more attention at the bar they were camping out in were the ones that made eye contact and were direct, versus the ones who were shy and barely talked. It didn't matter what they looked like!

Please just keep in mind that condescending arrogance is not confidence...

Temporary Friendships

The struggle, perhaps more on the female side of of our segregated communities, of staying friends with those people one was close with prior to getting married...

There's a certain connectedness people feel bonding over a shared circumstance and hardship. These are the friends that one develops when all her other peers have waltzed off into the sunset and left her behind in that stuck stage of life attempting to relate to those that have already caught their bus. It's difficult to relate when those cohorts, who once sat beside you and joined you in your worst worry about passing the Chumash final the following day, now they're fretting over tuition and a mortgage, while you cannot identify with those headches at all.

Does this mean that these relationships are less real or more temporary?

Perhaps one would never have chosen these "stand-ins" at some other stage in life, be it because of age, social, hashkafa, whatever, differences, but does this make the relationship any less real? Does this automatically mean that these friendships disappear when one finally has a ring on her finger?

There is a chance at that, for sure. We need people who can understand what we are going through to get through life. It's a shame if those relationships fall apart when one is no longer in the shared difficult situation, because perhaps it makes one believe that it's a less genuine relationship. Does that really have to be the case though?

Perhaps when two people really have very little in common and the only thing they connect over is the fact they are single, for example, it stands to reason that once one of them gets married their friendship will dissolve. However, motivating circumstances may be the thing that brought said people together, but once they get to know each other, they can become fast friends - a relationship that doesn't disintegrate when identifying factors change.

I have had a number of these friendships, the type where once someone no longer finds himself/herself in a challenging situation do they value the relationship the same. It hurts the most though when they cannot remember what it feels like. I guess forgetting that fast is a bracha, really.

Someone once shared with me a poetic essay comparing people to bridges and how someone can help get you somewhere, yet disappear behind you once you've "crossed" it. Her point was really how to leave an ex in the past but still learn from him/her. This concept, though, works here too. I'm not suggesting that we ditch our friends when we no longer are in the same stage, but there is something to be said about finding those connections that help you get through life at that particular moment based on what you are going through.

Ghoster

You promised me the world
Then took off and ran
Why you left so abruptly
I still don't understand

Maybe you thought you couldn't be
Good enough for me
But it's not about "worthy"
You're great as is - honestly

You threw me away
Like a used plastic bag
I really want closure
But I won't be a nag

I know this has got
Mostly to do with you
But why is it that what we had
You now totally eschew

I don't know where your head is
If you think about me at all
But I still wonder about
What specifically was our eight ball

I'm stuck at getting through the day
With a fake smile on my face
Trying so desperately
This pain to erase

As far as broken records go
This one is stuck the most
I continue to think about you acting,
For all-intents-and-purposes, like a ghost

As much as I can rationally understand
That it isn't anything that I did
It still really hurts that one day we were great
And the next you were totally off the grid

Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part
That you'll contact me one day
But without some sort of ending
Closure for me is faraway

Perhaps it will take another
Who will take your place in my heart
But even then I will wonder
What caused you to depart

Where are you now
And where are you headed
How will I extract this piece of you from within me
Where it is so deeply embedded

How is it that you
Affected me so
But you could simply, without goodbye,
Head out and just go

Do you think about me at all
Remember what we had
Or doesn't your life leave room for that
Are things really that bad

You were the one to start all this
To say all these things that I believed
Why is it that now I'm the one
That is left feeling so aggrieved

Am I ever going to know
What went through your head
Am I ever going to know
Why it is you fled?