I asked three Men

I asked three men what romance meant to them.

The first man answered that it was when he kissed his wife on the neck and put his tongue in her ear. The second man clammed up and said that that was something personal and he wasn't going to discuss it with me. The third man tried to say something and then it was as if the words choked him and he said he'd have to spend some time thinking about it.

It was as though my question was a bucket of ice cold water that completely extinguished these three men. The silence that resulted from my totally natural and authentic question invited me to say what I thought.

I told the men that I don't believe in romance. Romance is just a gloriously fabricated illusion of the ego. When we expect to be romanced and courted, we are setting ourselves up for failure time and again. We expect another to court us and provide strokes for our egos because of a sincere lack of inner fulfilment. Romance is dependent upon an impossible illusion of the perfect sunset, the perfect gift, the perfect touching and kissing, the perfect choice of words and so on.

Have you ever considered that your fantasy of romantic love is merely a fairy story, like the ones we used to read as kids where the prince charming sweeps the heroine off her feet and they live happily ever after?

We have a responsibility to complete ourselves. It is no one else's responsibility to make us whole.

Man number one excused himself and went to bed. Man number three asked: "How am I supposed to satisfy a woman then?"

That is my point. You are not responsible for another's happiness. You are not responsible for completing another. You have a duty to love yourself. You have to go within and source your own happiness, your own self-esteem and your own inner power. And likewise your woman has to do this for herself. She needs to stand on her own two feet and find her centre of peace and self-love and contentment.

This was too much for man number three and he excused himself and went off to bed.

I could see man number two was writhing in his seat, having been left alone with me. We chatted on for a while, but the conversation shifted to more comfortable territory for him. We discussed other people and what they were doing in their lives. Man number two could breath again. The focus had shifted to something less invasive, less personal. There was no threat of him having to bear his soul.

Shortly after I excused myself to visit the ladies' room and man number two seized the gap and ducked off to his room.

The next morning at breakfast man number two came over and thanked me for causing him to think. I was flabbergasted because I had felt as though my words were like blanks firing from a pistol. My husband then enquired about what I had discussed with the three guys. It transpired that man number two's wife had been woken from her sleep because her man wanted to discuss what was on his mind. She had apparently told him to leave her to sleep and go back and discuss it with me.

Anyhow, the exercise is what it is. So if I cause you to think as a result of this sharing then  my mission is complete.

In closing I wish to add that romance is a fantasy and fantasies are best left in the recesses of your mind. They are not meant to be realised. But dreams are another story. Dreams must be realised. They must be brought to fruition.
We need to dream because it is our way of reinventing and recreating our lives going forward. It is by our dreams that we access the courage to make our lives better.

So here's to fulfilling yourself and bringing your dreams to fruition

Have a happy week

love
Nicolette