Ingredients for Love?

I don't care how cliche it is. I want a best friend. I have often wondered why people say this over and over. What is it about wanting to marry your best friend? What does it even mean? If people really felt this way, Would every guy would turn gay and marry the guy he watches sports with and drinks beer with? If every woman did this -- well... every guy would then stop being gay and turn straight because hot girls would be kissing hot girls all the time.

Have you ever met someone and felt inspired? Have you ever met someone and realized that when you are near them you become happier, smarter, wiser and more in touch with yourself? When they leave, you feel conflicted... because part of you misses them, but part of you is soothed because they never seem to leave you. This is what I am looking for. I know this exists. I knew it existed before I even started a relationship. How do you define this "essence and being" into a quality? You can say "caring and kind", but those are just attributes of an empathetic soul. So.. maybe what I really cherish is Empathy. The ability to look outside of yourself and to want to relate and understand what someone else is going through. Maybe my definition of empathy is fuller than what the true definition is. Maybe I see it through my Pisces eyes. I remember one time in college, I was a freshman - and I was walking down the stairs... and came across a girl I had never met. She was sitting on the stairs sobbing. I walked past her -- and when I did, I could literally feel her pain. So I turned around and I asked her if I could sit next to her. She just nodded through her tears. I put my arm around her... and she lost it...and I hugged this stranger for minutes -- until she could talk. She cried it out -- and then we sat in that stairwell for 2 hours while she just opened up. At the end, she asked me why I stopped if I didn't even know her...and I said the only thing I really knew, "Because if I were hurting that badly I would want someone to do that for me too." She never talked to me again -- she would always avert her eyes. That broke my heart. Not because she didn't take time to ever recognize me again, but because she was so uncomfortable in her vulnerability. When you are around someone who can empathize... I think you look for ways to be united rather than dwelling on your differences.... and I have learned that even within the greatest of love, you will always have differences. You can be nearly aligned in a singular vision -- but find yourself divided by perspective alone. But... empathy can overcome this division. Empathy can leverage compromise as a tool. People often think compromise means one person is losing and the other is winning or that both people are losing... in some way. This is laughable. Compromise is an extension of love. and I define love as this: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. (I stole that from M Scott Peck and his book : The Road Less Traveled....)


They are out there. The walking dead amongst the living. Spiritual zombies.... they are empty and bankrupt and yet they are existing in the same time as us. I don't know how this works. I don't know how to be like these people, the same way they probably don't have a clue how to be like me. I know these people are not bad people, but they are often disconnected. I have a father who is like this. Despite some brilliant wisdom and some savvy business acumen, he lacks a trait that I find essential for me to have a relationship with -- and that is awareness.

For me... Awareness is the start of the role you want to play in the world. Maybe it ties more closely to empathy than I realized, before writing this. Awareness allows us to look at ourselves and our behaviors and to modify and adjust. Awareness allows us the ability to understand the energy another person has - and the energy the world can offer. It's sad, I spent so much of my life living in hell with my awareness. In the past, I spent my time being so aware of who I was - that I held myself in a victimized mentality. There was a time where I equated awareness with guilt and punishment. I lived in a hell where I only listened to one message, "You are not good enough." I would use my awareness to fuel this belief. However, because of my spirit and my determination... I used this as motivation. I used not being good enough as fuel to always do better.... and it worked in a very limited capacity, but for the most part -- it was just torture. As I got older and away from the life that I had been mislead by, I began to realize that true awareness is a stillness. I used to find comfort in chaos and noise. I was afraid of silence. I liked to be alone, but would fill my life with a static distraction. The idea of quieting my mind and heart was so scary for me. The idea of just being was so impossible for me. I laugh when I read my old screenplays and short stories I wrote from about age 14 to 24. They are the same story over and over. They are the story of an overly aware guy who is always losing... and everyone can see he tries too hard, but because of his determination, he is rewarded with the love of the beautiful female in the story. Most of the humor is self deprecating and my style always teetered on absurdist like Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka... and humorous Romantic Comedy as done before by Woody Allen. It is amazing that awareness can be as destructive as it can be a way to bond. It isn't the awareness that is the problem, it's what we do with it. I need a partner who understands who she is and what she wants. I need a partner who uses awareness to grow and to help her man grow.