Originally posted by Tampa Dan. Originally posted by Richard:"Love like you're not afraid of being alone."
It means that real love is about giving, not needing. To give without needing. That sounds like a self-actualized state that doesn't come naturally to a lot of people... but well worth the effort. I like your definition, Richard.
Any others?

This was from the message board, and this is how I started to respond.

There's a way to teach yourself how to give without needing. You can train your body to produce some nice endorphins when you are doing the right thing. It's all a matter of focusing on the right thing, and that focus comes from your imagination, as our squirreliscious one said. I have been using a sort of imaging technique for work now for quite some time and it's amazingly helpful. Today, I was shift manager, as well as working in my own area, so I had to deal with everyone's problems, not just the ones in my own department. I pictured myself as the wise and caring person, in charge of things, but also interested in how each person was doing and how they were feeling about their work day. And, somehow, I've learned to make myself feel good when I really listen to what each person has to say. It makes it easier to give the right response to whatever problem they might have, and most of all, I am able to pass some of that good feeling along to them. (It's what charisma is, you know... you learn to convey good feelings to another person.) It worked like a charm this morning... and the day went really well... until I almost slapped this crazy woman towards the end of the shift! I'm still learning...

I've gone through several stages in my life when I have appeared to be quite the extrovert, but it's not my natural state. I pay a lot of attention to the people around me, trying to understand and I tend to be extremely empathetic; I pick up on the feelings of those near me and sometimes have trouble separating them from my own. There are times when I just have to be alone to sort things out. As the years go by, I see that I've gotten much better at dealing with this, but it's all because I imagined myself being better at it.

And love... In my late twenties, I really wanted to be in love again with a man. (I had a fairly early and intense love when I was seventeen which left me cross-eyed, but wanting more, just not knowing how to go about it). I found my direction in a book called "Dancer From the Dance" by Andrew Holleran. It inspired me to see myself as someone who had a lover. I finished the book one night and went out to the bars in the Quarter, and met Willie, actually that night. We went on to have a relationship for five years and lived together for three and a half of those years. It was an intense and sometimes very stormy relationship and the breakup was messy, but it was a real thing. We are still friends after 20 plus years. With Bill, it was a little different. He was dating someone that I had a crush on and I hated him at first. Then a few months later my best friend sat us down to talk to each other since I was looking for cooks for the restaurant that I was chefing at, and I hired him, but it went way beyond that rather right away. Actually, here's the story. I haven't looked at that writing I did about Bill for a long time, but there it still is on my site. I had meant to tell the rest of the story... just haven't had the time or the inclination.

Not everything was perfect; there were times when we yelled and screamed and threw things. But they were few and fortunately, Bill never held a grudge. When something was over, then it was over and gone. It was a good match. He didn't like to plan or think ahead and I just had to do it; planning and rehearsing in my mind for the future was an obsession. He lived very much in the moment and helped to keep me there as well. I had an often unwise desire to tell the truth and Bill was an inventive and amusing liar. The nun that came from Catholic Charities (part of the AIDS services) to "counsel" us when he was dying was suprised to learn that Bill believed in re-incarnation and that he would be coming back as a hummingbird. Bill's sister, Sue and I were in the room at the time and I had to bite my tongue to produce tears that didn't seem to be from laughter. (This wise nun was not fooled, and she made me cry later when I really needed to.) So, I learned from my time with Bill that a sense of humor is necessary in a relationship. That a certain view of the truth is healthy. That the needs of two people must match in some way. That they each have something to give to each other.

And I learned something important about my self; that I have a very strongly defined sense of loyalty to my friends and lovers. I now extend some of that to the people that I work with, but the stronger part of it goes to my friends. And when I have a lover, the strongest part goes to him.

This is not a statement of how wonderful I am as a person; it's just how I turned out so far. There are lots of areas for improvement. But this sense of loyalty is central to my feeling of being a "good man". You need to have that...

It's why I can get up in the morning and go out to face the day.

durlx