Potluck, men, and love.

To all of you who are asking about the Guy Panel, it was wonderful! Good food, good company, thoughtful questions, and some terrific guys sharing themselves with us,openly and honestly.

I admit that I was under the influence of some pain meds at the Panel, having done something very bad to my back and being unable to move without pain, so I don't remember everything that was said. But I can tell you what I learned about the guys and it's pretty simple. The answers to the questions include that they are shy about asking out a woman, that they do want sex in a relationship, that they want the woman to show that they are interested in them, and that they are "old-fashioned" in the sense that they want to treat their ladies respectfully. And they want us females to put aside what we've learned from seminars and books that tell us how to behave and what to do and instead just go with our hearts. And that they dearly want a partner to love and cherish and are missing what that brings to their lives.

So we are very different, we men and women, but our hearts are the common denominator. We all want to love and be loved and we'd like it sooner than later, considering our age and what time we might have left. I had only met one of the guys before the Panel and knew that he was sensitive and caring, so I didn't really know how the other three guys would be and I was pleasantly surprised to find them to be just as caring and sincere and willing to be vulnerable with a room full of women they'd never met. There really are nice guys out there, if this is any indication.

So I've pondered again the question of what makes a relationship work. The statistics are lousy about marriage and worse for relationships and it saddens me. In the midst of my trying to figure out what to write about this, I received a call from a guy who offered to be on the Panel after I had enough guys and he shared his views. He said that he hates dating and prefers to have friendships that may, or may not, become romantic. To him, friendships require honesty, vulnerability, and accepting the other exactly as she or he is. Dating and relationships, he says, are fraught with expectations and demands, that we fall in love with who we think the person is and, when we find out the real person is different than our image of them, we try to make them into what we want them to be.

He suggests that loving ourselves is the way to begin and I say, what a wonderful thing to do. So thanks to the Wowettes for coming to my home and filling it with joy and to the guys for being so vulnerable and honest and real. Let's love ourselves....and each other.