Somebody is trying to tell me something.

I just got back from a fun night with Rookie MacPherson's group www.SuperSingleMixers.com, a dinner-speaker event. Rookie let me help her with checking in the guests and I liked that, since I have been feeling a bit unsocial lately. Not anti-social, but just not like making small talk with strangers. But having a task allowed me a good position to watch how the night unfolded and I felt a good "vibe" from the crowd and watched as people greeted those they knew and newcomers fit right in. It reminded me of the TV show Cheers, how people have a great need to feel welcome and like they "fit in." Her events just feel good, the crowd is never clique-ish, and it always seems like a nice time was had by all.

The speaker was Bruce Derman, PhD, the author of the book pictured above. I've been to a zillion seminars, heard a trillion speakers, and read two gazillion self-help books, but I always find something new in each one, even if only to remind myself of a truth I already learned. He said that there are no wrong people, no bad dates, no unsuccessful relationships, and that judgements and rejection are a part of dating. He said that we match with whoever we are ready for at that moment, that everyone plays games but that we should figure out their particular one, and that we make at least six judgements when first meeting someone. His idea is that we should ask people if this is the "real you" since we each send a representative to the date that we think the other person would like. That when we think the person we liked has changed, it is only because we didn't ask the right questions and we don't listen to what we hear. I've heard all this before, but I listened again and somehow it seemed different.

Since I stopped getting the LA times and stopped TIVOing most of the TV I used to watch, I've had a lot of time to think about who I am and who I want to be and what I want from my life. Yes, I know that my quest is to live in the moment, but there's always room for self-appraisal so I've been going through some old books in my library, curious to see if I have been reading the same wisdom over and over and over through the years. One was Courage My Love by Merle Shain, who writes about love and longing, how we spend our lives trying to capture or recapture the love of our mothers, how we didn't really get what we needed when we were little, and how we spend the rest of our lives blaming others for our not being able to fill our inner emptiness. How it's really our love, the love of ourself, that we seek and that no one else can do that for us. I know that I've seen this in the men that I've loved, how they still suffer from what their mothers did or didn't do for them, how they are still angry at the pain of their childhood, how they take out that pain on the women they love today. And, although we women seem to function better, have more friends and more activities, and seem to need a man less than men need us, we still have that same pain and longing, that need to be loved, that seeking someone else to make us whole.

Dr. Derman had the same important message as Merle Shain and I think if I go through all my books, I might hear that same message, maybe in different forms or from different slants, but still the same. Dr. Derman said that "the lover you desire is not lost, you are." Merle Shain wrote "As long as we think we have to have somebody to adore us to be somebody, we are stuck in a holding pattern, whining and waiting, impotent and injured, blaming those who have failed us, not knowing we are complicitious in keeping ourselves from becoming the person we are meant to be."

And what do I say? Thanks to everyone who tries to show me the message to love myself, to my friends who help me see my value, to those who tell me they appreciate me, and to people like Rookie who provide us a safe place to grow. To my inner critic, I say "quiet, I'm not gonna listen anymore." To the world, I say bring it on, I'm ready to live and love.