Keeping the Romance

What on earth IS romance?

We had a dinner party the other day and one of our bachelor guests asked how we keep the romance going. As you know me – my answer wasn’t a straight one, but elaborated around the fact that at the beginning there might be a volcano-like experience of fire sparking and people not being able to keep the fingers of each other. Well I guess that’s what everybody is hoping for and some volcanoes might spark a bit hotter than others.

We all know however: The hotter the fire the more easily and severely one might get burnt!

See, I had a very bright volcano sparking once – no, not with hubby – and that might have been helped by the fact that the guy was Brazilian, and hence exotic enough to be more interesting than others, and hence me being more flattered to be considered a possible mate...

He wanted to have loads of kids and was very catholic – well, I didn’t mind kinds and were merely protestant; and a bit of a free spirit, really! But volcanoes have the weirdest effects: All of a sudden I was reading the bible and was prepared to pop at least five babies – well, I was promised a maid!

And then my steadily burning fireplace named Detlef came along the volcano burnt out with a puff. Apparently size doesn’t matter in fires either.

The next thing to consider is the foundation of the relationship which needs to be established by the time the fire loses its energy. That is the part where a lot of misconceptions are arising from: Everybody is hoping for the fire to stay at its hottest all by itself, and if this is not happening disappointment kicks in.

Some use a ‘fight and make-up’ strategy to fuel the relationship, but one has to be able to take the heat as well as the cold as this will never be a steady flame. Disappointment will be even bigger should the make-up sex all of a sudden taking place in the arms of a third party fire place.

The steady flame solution it to find a common ground, possibly with a house built on it, some kids playing in front, and a picket fence – or like in our case: a decent hedge.

Common ground and similar goals means, that one has to compromise at times and that one has to find the individual spaces. This is a bit like a very long school project: Hard work. And in the meantime one has to work around the nitty-gritty bits of life with unscrewed toothpaste, socks lying around, and garbage that needs bringing out.

While the make-up sex approach surely never gets boring it appears as less sustainable in the long run, while the picket fence people have to be a bit careful not to take the achieved for too granted and once in a while should see to find the fire tongs to stir things up a bit.

Whichever approach works for you: Romance means keeping this fireplace going the way you like it!

So, what are the things that fuel this little oven?

Well, if you are after the volcano version then you might cause a nice fight by forgetting the birthday or anniversary, leaving the toothpaste open and your socks on the floor. Then the jewellery or the flowers after might work to bring you onto the make-up sex road.

But for the steady fire person it’s not just about remembering dates either, it’s what one does with it. To have the secretary send over a bunch and an SMS apologising for being delayed for the dinner won’t work – although some would be glad to at least get that. As I said before: building a relationship is to find the best compromise and a truly romantic gestures would be to arrange a gift around one of these compromises; giving something back the other half gave up in order to make the relationship work.

The most romantic things however can be very tiny and spontaneous and sometimes the giver might not even notice it: It is when the better half is slipping into the others mind, and is just there when needed without being asked.

Imagine me cooking for 10 people short notice, hubby helping with the drinks, and the salad and when we needed something big to put the salad in I blanked... cooking and dishes are my resort and hobby, I buy that stuff, I know where everything is... with food bubbling on the hob and guests arriving soon, I lost the plot. And then hubby left the kitchen mumbling something like: ‘I know....’, and came back with a huge bowl from the bottom shelf that we rarely use. The perfect romantic gesture!

Tweeting like a bird

Didyou ever see a celebrity in the street and felt tempted to dash over and say ‘Hello’ like to a good friend? I almost bumped into John Lithgow at a London tube station, whom I had watched in 3^rd Rock from the Sun and had this split second of imbecility when I wanted to shake his hand and give him a hug.

What on earth would want me to do that?

On the other hand people are sending birthday gifts to Miss Piggy – my word, this women even has a page on Wikipedia .

And now there is another phenomenon thriving since about three years now: Twitter. And this little Internet gadget is splitting the world’s population into three. Either one is ignorant and hasn’t come across it yet – what might have hardly happened since almost every idiot is on twitter, while the rest is talking of it - or one despises it as communicational diarrhoea, or one loves it as a brilliant communication tool. Guess where I belong to!

The second group cannot comprehend what the information value of ‘I had a great dinner, now off to bed’ might be, and how it could be of benefit for loads of people – the ones that follow you and listen to your tweets.

While the third group… Hmm, hard to explain, and maybe too big words: But I claim that it is about the feeling of building and maintaining relationships respectively friendships.

Oh no! Don’t beat me up for using the word 'friendship'! I know that friendships are supposed to be deep and meaningful and at their best – forever! But are we really sure what that means?

The deepest friendships will always be the ones formed at a young age. We exchange information innocently and fearlessly, getting a bit disappointed when occasionally used against us, but all in all that crystallises into a small group of friends we are ‘Best Friends’ with. We can call them after 10 years and we will instantly click and things are like in the early days.

And still, there are a few best friends who we lose over the years, and I believe it’s only the ones with a very similar lifestyle to our own, who independently develop into the same direction as us, who are the ones that stay.

What about anybody else? Is any relationship that is not founded in these early secret baring years less than a friendship? And how are friendships maintained? Who are the people we feel close to?

It’s those of whom we think we know! And how do we know? By the little things.

The likes and dislikes, the daily routines and worries, and what they are up to. Social status like house, car, job, family, holidays, hobbies makes us acquainted - as soon as I know if somebody like gherkins but hates sweet corn, gets up early, and had a crappy or happy day I’m starting to feel close.

That’s why people we know from the telly like Miss Piggy feel real and I had the urge to shake hands with a stranger. And that is why people love Twitter. I feel close to my mum knowing that she is about to get her hubby for a bit of housework sharing, I am happy to know that my friend is baking muffins – again - so I don’t have to feel guilty featuring love handles when showing up at our training session, although I had promised to be a good girl.

To create friendship it needs a trust building phase of frequent contact until one might want to pursue to a deeper conversation revealing the real self. I quite see the dangers if that happens in the internet, However I found a few people who I now consider well acquainted and actually would like to meet to take it further - well, and they are living in nice parts of the world...

And in order to maintain a friendship the depth of a communication doesn't seem to be all important; it’s the frequency that makes a difference.

So yes, I am a fan of Twitter!

Follow me!

Tweet, tweet,… tweet,….

How To Train a husband

Just to not raise too big hopes, let me say this right from the start: This method is not working for household tasks! I haven’t found a reliable way to train a husband into showing responsibility and dedication for housework - yet! In regard to that matter I’m more relying on ‘try and error’ exercises - I definitely see good progress in certain areas, but the real break through is still at large.

What I have to report is based on case studies rather than proper research; however, there is indication for a method to work for certain lifestyle matters. What one needs is a triangle.

No, not what you think!

Ever heard of the parrot Alex? Again No, you don’t need a pet. Alex was so smart, he could talk, take decisions and do many other things, but like husbands he wasn’t able to tidy up around him. So the similarities are obvious and hence I feel that his training method could work as well for the men sharing our lives.

And how did he learn? By observation!

The trainer would show for example a blue plastic key to another person while Alex would be sitting there minding his own business. Trainer: ‘Blue Key’, putting it on table. Trainer: ’Give me blue key’ - other person giving her blue key.

Blue – small – shiny – interesting! You catch my drift. Alex firstly, wanting to have the key to play with and secondly, liked the passing on thingy, started copying the other person.

He didn’t learn as well when taught directly. He was much better in copying others. That is why kids learn so easily from other children and the telly, but not from teachers, or parents for that matter. Well, and that is why this method is not working on husbands for household tasks; it’s the lack of co-trainers. The only other members of the family are kids who do not respond well to direct training either. One would have to wait until their brains are insightful enough to set a trap. Sort of: Let’s play this game with which we teach Daddy. Once he has learned, you are off the hook and he will do everything we want!

This is killing three birds with one stone: The children will understand the concept of teaching and meanwhile unknowingly accept to learn stuff about household tasks, the trap setting bit will be a great bonding mechanism between you and your children, and hubby eventually might be picking something up.

However, I was fortunate enough to observ the effect of this training method in regard to ‘How to get hubby fit?’ several times now, and it is miraculous.

This method is even better for guys than for parrots because they are more competitive. As soon as an initial improvement is reached, they work like a Perpetuum Mobile and sometimes they even become rather annoying in their determination. So be aware what you are asking for.

It starts with the undeliberate entrapment phase: Without a husband in mind woman feels horrible, decides something has to change and get’s a gym membership, or starts running. Husband observes and gets interested but is not doing anything yet, woman shapes up and is getting compliments from others, she finds other woman to train with, she can put her improvements into numbers of kg or miles – very important incentive for guys, women talk about numbers in front of husbands, husband decides to give it a shot.

Interestingly enough they will not choose a different kind of sport but the exact same one that the missus is doing. Additionally they will not listen to the experience gained by the wives and will do it all wrong. However, on observing the spouses, they will improve and that is when the perpetuum mobile effect kicks in, they are starting to take over and become a bit of a nuisance at times, since THEIR ambition of course deserves the support of the whole family.

Although their efforts are generally a very good thing, we are now sort of pushed into the background a bit.

These guys are stealing our thunder!

And given the fact that the damn household is still our thing, it’s hard to find the time to put our minds to something else in which we can become the experts before they do.

Oh well, who is competitive now? But there is a grain of truth in it, isn’t there?

If somebody from the outside world would have a look at the constellation: They always would assume that the guys took the lead and we followed – I just can’t have that: Thanks to their testosterone driven body strength they managed to take us over; so at least we want to be the ones who did it first and were the inspiring part!

So, there is no two ways about it - However exhausting it sometimes might be: We have to stay ahead of the game. And the better we get the more they will follow. It’s good for them, it’s good for us!

And now I even have an idea for the perfect household training:

We need to travel more – alone!

The duration has to be just long enough that clean underwear and ironed shirts are running out. Kids and pets have lost the excitement of being served by somebody else, and the house is getting really dirty. And it has to happen more often. Household tasks are a bit like software, while the guys are a bit like computers: you need to restart the software once in a while, or they forget how it works and just idle.

So, let’s enjoy ourselves and let’s take off to new endeavours: It’s for the good of our husbands!

Dangerous Romance

Hubby got up early today and thus I had the rare opportunity of watching telly at 6:30 in the morning. While the world is thrown into yet another financial crisis because some prat thought it a good idea to cheat a few billion from the biggest banks he could find, another headline informed me that the DVD of the movie Mamma Mia came out just in time for Christmas.

We definitely have it too good! Still!

Ok, they had a finance guy who gave an interview; however, they actually took the effort to interview people in the street for their opinion on romantic comedies, asking:

Are romantic comedies bad for relationships?

At first I didn’t really comprehend. In what way can they be bad? I only recently found out that they actually may be the one thing saving a relationship. All of a sudden I was all eyes and ears to hear the people speak.

Oh my …, I didn’t think that the people would be retarded – well, at least the one half of the people. I really do hope that this guy is not representative for all of the male population.

He said that women shouldn’t watch too many romantic comedies because they might get fantasies about how relationships should work which will not be achievable in the real world.

Duh?

How daft does that guy think we are?

They interviewed some girls and they didn’t comprehend either. They said: Yeah, well – It’s a fantasy. We know the difference between fantasy and real world.

What this guy doesn’t get is the fact that these are feel good movies. One has a laugh, one has the happy ending, one has some popcorn, one does feel good.

Remember what I said earlier in this place?

A woman needs to feel good to have sex while a guy needs to have sex to feel good. Remember guys: Everything that makes us feel good is for your own benefit.

I'm really wondering if this guy watches porn. In the Sex Education Show on Channel 4 they interviewed teenage boys and showed them pictures of ‘real’ boobs and a ‘surgically and digitally enhanced’ one mixed in, asking them what they think how a real boob should look like.

They all went for the fake one, they all had got their ‘knowledge’ about the female anatomy from the internet, and from their research they had clear ideas on how relationships should work, which – most likely to their surprise – will not be achievable in the real world.

So!

While girls enjoy a good fantasy as what it is – a feel good fantasy - the guys take their fantasies for real and are wondering why things are not working out.

If the guys would stop mocking us for enjoying a good romantic comedy and would catch the drift instead and in the meantime switching the bedroom radiator on, dimming the light, getting some sparkly and lighting a candle, we might just meet in the middle.