Category: Potluck

The funny thing about love is that it keeps us so rooted in the NOW.  We like how it makes us feel…right now.  We like the way our heart thumps when he looks our way, and the second he touches us…ooh, we wish this moment will never end.

But NOW is just a series of moments, some good, some not so good, trickling through an hourglass.  It behoves us to bet our chips on a relationship that will still be there, thriving and growing years into the future, rather than waste precious time on one that feels good now, but doesn’t stand a snow-cone’s chance on a hot pavement.

How can you tell if your relationship is here to stay? Take my utterly uninformed and random quiz and see.

His past relationships:

1. He’s had a few long-term girlfriends, thinks of them fondly, and can still remember their food preferences, dogs’ names, and favourite songs.
2. He doesn’t mind a little weekend fling, but has had a girlfriend or two. 
3. His guest towels are embroidered with “His” and “Whoever”.

Family ties:

1. You feel comfortable enough with his family to turn up on his mother’s doorstep with your belly in your hand, even when he’s not with you.
2. His folks are warm and welcoming, but occasionally his mother slips up and calls you by the name of his previous girlfriend.
3. His family refers to you not by name but by number.  And it’s a high number.

“The biggest arguments you have about your future is what you’re going to name your children and what colour you’re going to paint the kitchen.”

Sex

1. Your bedtime romps are loving, playful, adventurous and satisfying.  If he doesn’t know what you want, he’ll ask.  Toys are involved, but not the kind so scary you need a licence just to rev them up.
2. Sex is good…when you have it.  It’s just that sometimes, your appetites don’t seem to mesh.   You have this nagging feeling that if you didn’t work hard at keeping your desire up, the embers would cool to ash…and deep down, you wouldn’t care.
3. The man has so many moves in his playbook you begin to suspect he WROTE the playbook.  He talks dirty, which is nice…except when his sex chat consists of long, detailed descriptions of his past adventures, and the woman he’s had them with.  Some of his exploits could have gotten him arrested.

Money

1. For the most part, you see eye to eye on how money should be handled.  When the subject of future finances crops up, he uses the word “we” a lot.
2. You have occasional rows about money, and sometimes you wish he paid more attention to financial management.  He spends way too much on tech toys and i-Whatsits, but he hasn’t let the electrical service get cut…yet.
3. Hello, Ant?  This is Grasshopper.  You have a lil’ change to spare?

Future goals

1. You pretty much want the same thing.  The biggest arguments you have about your future is what you’re going to name your children and what colour you’re going to paint the kitchen.
2. He’s feeling nesty, but you want to travel a bit before you settle down.  But you come up with a compromise that works for both of you.
3. You want a house 45 minutes from town, a son and daughter, in that order, and a dog rescued from the pound.  He wants a houseboat moored on the banks of the Caroni, children give him hives, and his only use for small mammals is to feed his pet macajuel.

Other good indicators are similarities in:

• Religious beliefs
• Educational background
• Politics
• Women’s rights
• Friends

Scoring

Mostly As – One day, you’ll sit on the porch with your grandchildren on your knees.

Mostly Bs – You may not be as compatible as hops and ham, but with some work—and some serious, honest discussions or your goals, hopes and needs—you just might make it.

Mostly Cs – The life expectancy of your relationship slightly exceeds that of yogurt.

Some of us (and we aren’t calling any names) are such die-hard romantics (and suckers for a cute smile) that once we’re bitten by the love bug, we just can’t stop ourselves from coming down with a serious case of romantic fever.

You know you shouldn’t.  You know he’s bad for you.  You just don’t know how to stop yourself.  Lucky for you, we do.  Here are a few pointers.

Stop looking for a daddy

It’s well known that as girls, our concepts of masculinity are moulded by our fathers.  Very often, we hook up with men who remind us, even on a subconscious level, of the first man who ever loved us and made us feel like a princess.  But if daddy wasn’t good to mommy, we run the risk of falling into the same trap—even if we swore we wouldn’t.

We need to remind ourselves that, living or dead, absent or present, loving or distant, we only ever had one daddy, and the last thing we need to do is go searching for Daddy #2 among our pool of suitors…especially if he won’t live up to our expectations.

 Don’t be fooled by chemistry

Maybe you don’t believe that sex is only for marriage, but chances are you see love and sex as inextricable….after all, that’s what we’ve been taught, right?  Good girls only sleep with men they love.

But if you follow that logic backwards, good girls must love the men they sleep with… and here’s where the problem starts.  You find a man who gets that electrical current flowing and you say to yourself, I want him, I desire him, I’m even sleeping with him.  So I must love him, right?

Wrong.  As nice as it is when the two meet in the middle, sex isn’t love, and love isn’t sex.  Keep your head on; don’t let your hormones dumb you down.

Stay away from him

Duh!  The best way not to get burned is to keep your hands out of the fire.  You might think you’re cool enough to handle him, so it’s okay for you to take a little drink now and then, play a little mas with the man, roll around on the cushions once in a while, and walk away unscathed.

But the love bug is ruthless when it sniffs out a victim, so if you can’t immunise yourself, at least stay far from the source of infection.

Stop believing in fairies

Or elves, good witches, or any magical creature you think can sprinkle pixie dust on the wrong man and miraculously make him right.  For that matter, stop deluding yourself into thinking he’s a piece of play dough and, if you squeeze and rub him right (mind out of the gutter, we’re speaking metaphorically here) you can mould him into what you want.

Honey, please.  The only woman who ever did any moulding on that man was his mother, and he’s way past that now.  So what makes you think you can change him?

Learn more about yourself

Once you’ve survived the train-wreck of your relationship, (or narrowly avoided a collision) use the experience to learn more about yourself.  Ask yourself a few hard questions, such as, Why do I keep falling for men like this?  Am I afraid of a relationship that will actually WORK?  Am I punishing myself, trying punish my parents, enjoying the drama? 

When you find the reasons behind your attraction, use this new knowledge about yourself to help you spot—and avoid—your next disaster in the making. 

The Nile is full of crocodiles

And denial is full of bad choices.  If you know he’s not the man the Universe has reserved for you, stop telling yourself everything is going to be okay.  Get out while you can, and keep looking.  Don’t run the risk of true love walking right past you in a pair of well-fitted jeans while you’re busy hanging on to something that just shouldn’t be.

Keep telling yourself you deserve to be happy—and so you will once Mr. Right knocks Mr. Oh-hell-no out of the picture.

Any more ideas? Leave a comment!

I don’t want to sound mean, but sometimes you get invited somewhere—to a dinner with people you’d rather avoid, to your cousin’s god-daughter’s piano recital, or even on a date with a guy who’s trying to get his ear-hairs into the Guinness Book of Records. You’d rather chew on tinfoil that go, but you don’t want to hurt any feelings either.

We’ve come up with a few off-the-cuff excuses that you can throw out in a moment of panic . . . but be warned: some can come with a backlash.

1. “My car’s making a strange thumping sound, and I’d rather not be on the road at night.”

Backlash: They might turn out to be amateur mechanics, and begin hurling questions at you like, “Is it a steady thump-thump-thump, or more like a thumpety-thumpety-thump? Did you try rotarising the neutrals?” Worse yet, they might offer to pick you up.

• “I think my dog has chikungunya. I need to stay home and monitor him.”

Backlash: They might point out that dogs don’t get chikungunya, to which your only response is, “As far as you know . . ..”

• “I’m on a new Hollywood detox. It’s an extremely powerful cleanse, so I can’t be away from home for more than 20 minutes.

No backlash I can think of. If they begin to protest, launch into a graphic description of all the stuff that comes out of you. They’ll be off the phone before you can draw a second breath.

• “I have to help my grandma sort through her photo albums. You know how they are when they get old and start cracking up . . . the photos, I mean, not my grandma . . ..”

Warning: this excuse only works if your grandmother is still alive.

• “My kid flushed her teddy bear down the toilet. Then she tried to send the cat down to retrieve it. It’s hell in there . . ..”

No backlash here: they’ll hang up feeling relieved that they decided to remain childless.

• “Thanks, but I’d rather not.”

Clean, simple, and honest. If all else fails, try this one out. Let me know how it went.