THOUGHTS: WATER AND SELF-ESTEEM SEEK THEIR OWN LEVEL

If you bring to the relationship nothing but your neediness, the balance is all off. You beomce your partner's baby. Sometimes we give so much of ourselves away and our self-acceptance was based on whether our partner accepted us or not. People are so obessed with their appearance...like their weight, or hair....and believe if they were only different they'd be loved. I was like that...i was obess about being so skinny and not being attractive enough. Obsessing about imperfection make for low self-evaluation. Just like water seeks its own level, equal self-evaluations match up in men and woman too. This is why I am alone presently. I haven't met anyone who is my equal.

I am in my 30s and sometimes I feel like will i ever find the right woman. With this attitude...dating would become more like a process of hoping-to-be selected than an opportunity to select. We all tend to be motivated much too much by the tremendous relief that comes with realizing someone is interested in us---because we're lonely or feeling amorous and would like to act it out. So we go with the flow without, indeed, making any choice atall. Do you see the cruical difference there? Acquiescing to an availability is in no way making a choice.

How do we get through the rough times? By believing in ourselves enough and occupying ourselves enough, developing ourselves enough, so that we can tolerate the discomfrot between now and our next triumph. Why not ride the loneliness through and come out a stronger person as the result of it? Why not fill our minds and our hearts and stop using a relationship with a person as a substitute for the core fulfillment. When you get scared, whether it's expressed as boredom, loneliness, feeling lost, or as if your life has no meaning and no direction...do something like taking a bath, a walk, exercising, having a cup of tea...anything that puts some time and energy between you and your feeling.

Everyone has experience loneliness to some degree throughout their life. But the quality, satisfaction, and meaning you get out of your life depends upon how you face those fears. Using an unsatisfactory relationship to camouflage them is a sure way to diminish self-worth. Expecting someone to provide you with your life is unrealistic and actually unfair, because it's simply not their job. I am still in the process of understanding this also. I am slowly but surly doing things by myself instead of waiting to be in a relationship....like exploring SoHo by myself. But sometimes we are driven to attach to people for identity, affirmation, approval, purpose, and security--values that can really only come within ourselves. Itls like if someone hold you,,you're animated. If they put you down, you become an inanimate object. No wonder why we race to make sure we got someone around...they literally give you life and security.

Saying and doing are two diferent things. The same way it's hard to say not to a piece of cheesecake...How are you going to say NO to yourself and focus on YOU? When the agony of simply being with yourself, utterly devoid of a sense of importance or joy, makes you want to snort a person up like a drug. You know where self-esteem ultimately come from? Surviving the painful moments.

Many people are sensitive to our attachment desperation, and don't feel wanted for themselves but instead are aware they're being used. No one will deny the enormous ego gratification involved in having someone attracted to you. There is pleasure in having a good time with somebody. There is comfort in having somebody share many of your percepectives. Affirmation, approval, and attachment are good. The excitement of all those feeling coming together is exhilarating. If you are desperate for affirmation, approval, sex and attachment, if you're grateful to be chosen, so you're not too choosy, if you are settling instead of being selective then you need to not date right now. Since people with low self-esteem tend to seek their own level when pairing up, never feel you're beneath your partner you're with. because they probably your camouflaged mathc and has an equal problem.

Sometime we get attach to the wrong person who is verbally abuse and not kind. Real love is a long marination of qualities having to do with resepct, admiration, appreciation, character, affection, cooperation....but we stay with someone who abuse us because....."we love them". I was in such a situation with Melissa....she treated me so bad..and yet is stayed because i loved her. I finally broke the cycle when my sister said to me, " If you were a parent, would you introduce this kind of woman to your son?" My answer is NO. Why would I not be caring to myself as I'd be about my son?" Maybe because:

-if she didn't want me...I'm no good
-I'll never find anyone else to tolerate me
-I don't want to be alone
-It's better than nothing
-I am getting older
-I don't really think I could find anyone better
-Sometimes she wasn't so bad
-Caring for her make me feel more meaningful about my life
-I;m too scared to face unknown, inside myself or in the world
-It hard fo find people you have great sex with.

I realize that the price tag you put on yourself will determine in large part the value of the people and teh situation you'll pick and tolerate. When i found how hard it was of letting go of Maria and Melissa...i realize the issue really was not one of letting them go, but of not being able to hold on to myself. There is a big difference between being hurt and disappointment that someone has rejected you---since we have all been rejected and making the leap to "I'm worthless and unlovable is wrong.

People like that make their intimate relationships the center of their universe. You claming as love the attachment to anyone who barely show a hint of approval is a desperate state of being. You worry that any minute change in that person's demeanor or behavior might mean his or her lack of interest...and the loss of you. It makes life a fragile experience.

Intimacy and sexuality are not synonymous. Within an hour I could have sex with a complete stranger.This is obviously not intimacy. Intimacy is not the ability to do it....it is the ability to talk over the doing it..and everything else, from the meaning of sex to the meaning of life. This is why I usually need to talk to someone I am going to me for a few weeks.

Maybe my need for sex early in a relationship has to do as using sex to satisfy loneliness or starvation for approval. For the longest time..i never felt love from my parents and the only moment that I ever experienced as love were the sexual moments of my life. It was just too much to give up. And so the vicious circle began: not feeling loved or lovable--having sex to feel love---realizing later that it was just sex and not love---not feeling loved or lovable. Trust me sex never workds as a hoped-for-cured or anesthesia for feeling of inadequacy, emptiness, shame, loneliness, fearfulness, ...ect. Using a woman' sexual interest and approval as a means of buoying a sinking feeling of worthlessness. The problem is that it just doesn't work for longer than the moment...if that.

I feel sometimes that sex is the only thing I really have going for me. I am that good. What would a woman be attracted to me for without it? How would I keep her? That is why when I was Melissa...we would have sex session for 2-3 hours everytime we were together. I made sure she would cum a couple of times. And i would always tell her, "No one will ever fuck you better than me".

How can you get a person to respect you and treat you with respect. My answer is always the same: Never settle for or permit less. I don't tolerate things anymore:

-unkindness
-flip-flop behavior
-can't keep promise

We have this "it must be me" syndrome of handling someone else's inappropriate behavior. We ask ourself: What's wrong with me? The truth is we are so desperate to be wanted that we almost don't even care what kind of person they are as long as they want us. You are not choosing. You are sitting there hopeing to be chosen. That's the problem. We are too needy of the attachment. The fantasy of winning approval or love through long-suffering toleration of other's single-minded self-centeredness doesn't bring in the love of others. And it promote the hate of self. Much too often...due to the I am attached, therefore I exist...set up for hurt and anger. Having a partner won't heal your hurts, resolve all your self-doubt, and protect you from life's challenges. Remember water and self-esteem seek their own level. That means that when you are with a person who does bad thing ( negative, controlling, verbal abuse), your mixture of compassion (She or he is really good heart underneath) and reticence demonstrates that you don't think much of yourself .

My apparent bad choice might be the culmination of my search for proof of my worth or lovability. I know it sounds all backward, but if you've found a parent difficult--emotionally unavailabe, self-centeredd, addicted or whatever --one scenario for redress is to find someone just as difficult and try to work it out with that person as a final validation of your lovability---like a beliated instant replay.