Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Freedom .
“You need to date more.”
Crap. What now? I’m looking at my intuitive friend, Shawna, over hot chocolate and shaking my head. I assure her I’m doing just fine and I’m quite busy. Not dating more than I do is not some kind of deficiency—it’s a choice not to lower my standards—and I’m a little offended.
I really don’t have time to go looking for a man, if that’s what she’s suggesting. I’m just trying to make it through my next deadline and then maybe I’ll think about romance but it’s not the focus of my day, except for the romance between the hero and heroine in my novel. And right now, they’re not getting any either.
I didn’t ask for dating advice, but she’s sure her spirit guides are trying to tell me something. I need to datemore. They’re emphatic.
My response? “Do I have to?”
I’ve just been living life for the past few months, doing my own thing, not concerned about meeting new men, and out the blue, I get this: you need to date more.
Dating is time-consuming, but it’s energy-consuming, too. The dating process itself can easily be a part-time job, one I don’t want. And for me to find someone I’m compatible with would mean overtime. That’s a lot of energy going out to other people when the energy doesn’t always flow back to me. It’s hard to find that kind of electrical circuit with a man that makes the expenditure worth my time. Maybe if I were less eccentric, I’d find someone compatible with ease. But that’s not the case.
“You have to kiss a lot of toads to find your prince,” another single woman told me recently.
No, I don’t.
But I’m bothered, so I call Shawna back. “Why should I put out that kind of energy when there are so many other places I could focus my attentions?”
She tells me I’ll learn more about myself by dating more. Okay, I’ll bite. So far I’ve learned what I don’t want…and in a couple of cases, what I do want. But mostly what I do not want, what I will not put up with, what ain’t gonna happen.
She gently reprimands me that I need to be less critical of men.
“Lower my standards? I don’t want to do that,” I tell her.
“Not exactly. They’re telling me to tell you that you’re not to take them home or sleep with them. Just do lunch. You’ll learn interesting things from them about yourself and they’ll learn a lot from you. And,” she adds, “if nothing else, it’s a free meal.”
Huh? Her guides said that? I don’t like that free meal thing. Just not me.
“So eat with them but then send them home alone?”
“Yes. Don’t worry about any new men coming into your life.”
Okay. Confused now. I hang up and call her back an hour later.
“Shawna, tell me exactly what your spirit guides are saying about dating. Are they giving you the words to say?”
“Sometimes. Mostly images.”
Then she describes a lovely scene of me sitting at a fast food table in a food court with a great looking guy across the table from me. He’s eating a chicken wrap and I’ve got Chinese. We’re actively talking, and I’m in a slightly sexy purple blouse. It’s an animated conversation and there’s much to be learned from each other.
“And that’s the date you’re being shown?”
“Yes. Just don’t sleep with him. You’re only to talk with him.”
I thank Shawna and hang up. No, I won’t be sleeping with this man. I know exactly whom she’s seeing and what.
This is a man I’ve worked with since 1993, a friend who’s been happily married for as long as I’ve known him. I had lunch with him last week—the chicken wrap and Chinese, me in a purple blouse. We ran into each other at lunch and he invited me to eat and chat with him. We had a wonderful intellectual conversation that included Iraqi politics and relationship dynamics. I was vaguely aware that someone watching may have thought we had a relationship more personal than “just friends,” as some people do when they see two people of the opposite sex sharing a meal and wild hand gestures. To someone looking in, it may have appeared to be a date.
I’ve done the same recently with other married men I have absolutely no physical or emotional interest in. Nothing against single men….just none have run into me at lunch and wanted to chat. I get something out of those conversations and they seem to as well. I don’t seek them out…we just run into each other and end up talking. I can’t see myself ever showing up at their homes or even alone in a car with them, but food courts seem to work out just fine.
It’s satisfying, and I crave intellectual banter. It also meets the criteria for the non-romantic “dates” Shawna’s spirit guides have been seeing. I’ve had more of these talks at lunch recently with men than with women…nothing intentional….just turned out that way.
Her spirit guides didn’t mention dating women, but it’s a lesson for me in remembering that the medium always interprets according to her own frame of reference.
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