Stay Disciplined with online dating...
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Week 30 of 30
palmer006 commits to:
Limit online dating activity to two timed hours on Sunday and follow-up messages through the week. No exceptions.
26
4
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My Commitment Journal
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Displaying 1-4 of 30 results.
July 10 to July 17
Successful
Success
Success
palmer006
- Committed user success report
Here we come to the end. The priorities activity yesterday was helpful. As has been reading The Light of the World and Way of the Superior Man. I feel like I'm holding a lot of perspectives at once on this, which is a good place to be, as I can shift and latch onto whatever meaning will help me get through the day with both zest and groundedness. It's been quite the journey. I'm much more confident about dating, much more at peace, much more understanding of what I can change, understanding of what I can't, and what I just don't choose to put the time into developing.
July 3 to July 10
Successful
Success
Success
palmer006
- Committed user success report
Process-orientation without losing sight of clear goals that give shape to the process.
We've run an interesting spectrum in our dating culture over the past 30-40 years it seems, accelerating from courtship to 'let's see where this goes' much faster than we did from arranged marriage to courtship in centuries' past. This still emerging but possibly adolescent, fairly Buddhist-influenced dating culture privileges control and reifies what might be called the anti-Hollywood 'adult' American view of relationships, which are rational, based on agreements and shared values, and for which feelings are optional and must be controlled.
What's true and helpful about this now mainstream view is that feelings will always arise and fall depending on the fluctuations in a relationship. It's important to understand one's commitment not just to another person, but to the projects, society, and larger sense of Being that the relationship serves. This is what's important about the adult view, which has finally, at least amongst 25+ year olds, overcome the overly romantic view of relationship formation, vanquishing the 'feelings trump everything view' for many. Of course, everyone feels they are special, they are taking it slow, everyone else dives in, but my observation is that actually, that's the norm amongst adults now.
What this view misses is the potential for romance that solidies the pair bond, and, taking place between two people who while imperfect, have largely owned their shit, is not based on a desire for mutual salvation but rather mutual purpose. The Highly Sensitive person in love puts it best, that some of us can use romance as a way of connecting with 'essential spirit' that same sexual energetic void that is experienced in spiritual Ecstasy, because sexuality is spirituality.
Carving out the time and maintaining the hope for both romantic chemistry and purpose is not easy, and commitments vary wildly to either of those worthy ends seperately, to say nothing of together (and a third element, which I think I am willing to sacrifice, but would love to have in addition, sexual chemistry).
I would like to approach dating as a practice of keeping me in communion with Feminine energy while single. Like contemporary dating culture encourages, I don't want to push too strong an agenda too soon on where things go. Unlike contemporary dating culture, I also want to trust my heart and intuition as much as a co-partner in exploration with my body and mind, rather than see it subjugated. There is no vitality in that. Ondrea and Susanna's dating adventures have the feel of placid, perhaps even flaccid adulthood. This is why I am not a Buddhist. My goal is not, actually, to rid myself of all desire for a mate. I actually want to become worthy, in some way, of someone that I'm deeply drawn to - that's not a problem for me, it's a motivation. This is a perfectly tribal, biological, worthy goal, and fuck the body-denial-ism that fears passion and would run from the potential of love just to avoid its immature forms.
I do have to hold this desire with non-attachment, though. I will find the woman I'm with next when I finally arrive at that place where I can hold space with a woman I'm deeply drawn to without the energy knocking me off purpose. Because I'm such a high leverage individual, this will be fucking intense when I get there, and very difficult to get to because so much energy flows through me. Vanilla sex, when connected, is absolutely overwhelming.
I have two visions, and I think they are ultimately the same: one sees me finding a relationship, and one that ends up working for a long-time, sometime soon. Another sees this a long, arduous 10-year journey, along which I do develop some lothlorio characteristics as I so hope, but ending up in the same place - a successful intimacy. And it's also possible that I find nothing that lasts.
What's important is treating dating as a practice, enjoying it, not allowing it to grow stale or become an obligation, keeping it oriented towards mission, and ultimately making sure I serve my dates and a larger purpose through the whole endeavor. If I can do that, I've done what I wanted to do with my dating and sexual life given my own limits and the world's limits. The outcome, while important and relevant, will have to flow out of that, or not.
June 26 to July 3
Not Successful
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