Random Thoughts

Ok, so the journey I'm taking right now (in case you hadn't heard I graduated from Graduate School, moved to CA and now am teaching middle school math) is centered around the dating world... it's a scary place. Full of intrigue, mistakes, happiness and sadness.

But because of one website I'm using (yes I tend to meet people online) I'm reading some journals and found some quotes/thoughts that are interesting to debate so I'm putting them here in hopes of debating them through the blog-o-sphere :).

Interesting thought 1:

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Oh I love this quote. I had never heard it before but there's this 1 guy that I am dating that is very romantic and in fact does this to me all the time! He "gazes" into my eyes... but I'll catch him, say "what!?!" and he says "nothing" - ALL THE TIME. It's gotten to a point where it's rather annoying actually. I've told him to stop doing it and he continues to do it. I'd rather just chill with someone instead of staring. Can we all be honest and admit that gazing is a euphemism for staring? I want to be appreciated yes, but for more than what I look like.

Interesting thought 2:

"I prefer women with whom I have enough in common that certain things MATTER to her. That she would not want a man who didn’t have them. Ironic as it may seem, I would PREFER a woman who discriminates about the things I want her to discriminate about--that she would not have chosen me if I didn't have them. I would choose that kind of woman over one who could go either way on those topics, because that is when it is most obviously apparent that her values coincide with mine."

Ok, so I'm totally responding to this idea. It's not my original idea but I like this idea and I wanted to expand/contemplate it (and save it of course) so I thought I'd put it here.

So I like this in that, well, there *are* certain things that matter to everyone. Certain things *are* a big deal and hence are deal-breakers. Those are the things you shouldn't budge on and the things that narrow down your search about who you want to spend the rest of your life with.

For example, bad spelling and grammar bother me. I'm not going to say that I'm an English professor or that I know every single nuance of the English language. BUT I do know when to use apostrophes, commas and periods. I also know how to spell most words and can usually look at a word and tell when it is misspelled. So I'm not looking for an English major by any means but if English is your primary (and only) language then please know how to use it. I don't mind some silly broken speech but it shouldn't be the way you communicate all the time.

Interesting thought 3:

"... I think that a great mistake a lot of people make... is not valuing oneself enough. Not enough to save your heart for the right person.

"... your heart is like a precious vase, sitting on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. When it gets broken, it's as though somebody walked past and carelessly knocked it over. It falls on the ground, broken into pieces. So, you pick it up, put the pieces back together again, glue it together as best you can, to resemble the original.

"All young people love easily, but not all young people have good judgement. As a wise man once said "Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment". And of course, nobody is perfect. So....they fall in love again, their heart gets broken again--and they try to pick up the pieces again, as they did before.

"However, every time that happens, a tiny little broken shard is not found. It never makes it back to the original, with the rest of the pieces. And when that happens repeatedly, many shards are lost over time. Finally, when you find the one, and you want to fill it up--when you finally want to feel something for this amazing person...you find that it won't hold anything, because it all runs out through all the little holes that were left, from each of the lost and forgotten shards.

"Now, I have great faith in the future. I was taught that the mark of a winner is to be able to make lemonade when life gives you lemons. I have every confidence that between me and the Man Upstairs, it will be in even better than new condition by the time He sends me the one He has in mind for me. Having said that, the least I can do, if I want His help, is to be a little pickier than I have been in the past, as to which women I share it with."

I don't know that anyone can read that and not say "wow"... it's a wonderful analogy. The next thought that I had when I read that story was... how many people have I let break my vase? I don't mean that in a crude way, I mean that in a very literal sense. I've been in my fair share of relationships. Ok, my friends know me as a serial dater or serial relationship person. I unfortunately do often make my love life the center of my life and I know that I have such large career/life aspirations that I really need to stop making love (or lust) the center of my universe.

So... I think (and I say this probably at least once a month) I'm going to take a hiatus from dating. Center on myself. It's probably better to do that right now because (1) I've been talking to a few people that I want to see where just talking for now will go, (2) the school year is going to be starting soon and I want to focus on my students for a while and (3) I do actually need to focus on myself for right now.

Thoughts? Questions? Ideas?

I will probably be blogging much more often now. I think I need someone to talk to ;). Share my journey with me?