DATING: DATING WORLD

I wonder why everyone around me, except me is in a great relationship, getting engaged, getting married, having kids and zooming right along in life. I believe with great certainty that my special someone does exist. She is out there. Each and every day could be the day when I meet the person of my dreams, the person with whom I will spend the rest of my life.

I know men who are not as interesting as I am, not as smart as I am, not as loving as I am, but yet have a great relationship. My problem with finding the right woman has nothing to do with my personal worth or value..is that these guys know how to play the game better than me.

I  am not going on any more date with another pretty woman who spend all the time talking about yourself. I am not going to spend time with who who fall so far below the bar that they make inmates look good. I will not spend time with woman who I know absolutely, positively, will lead me nowhere. I decided that right now, I would rather be happy alone than miserable with someone body else. I will not choose somegirl out of fear that I may not get a better choice later.

I don't fit with everybody and not everybody fits me. There are people out there I know that i will drive crazy and vice verse. I have a clear vision of what I want and what I don't want. It tough enough to merge two lives without problem...I think I am worthy of a functioning, healthy quality mate. I don't need a wounded, nutty, conservative woman. I won't pick a woman who is broken. It's like buying a car, If two cars are sitting there, and one has been wrecked while the other doesn't have a scratch on it, heck, even Lassie knows to pick the one that isn't damaged. there are too many fish in the sea for me to pick on who in a different page than me.

You see, I am looking for the experience of being with the right person. A sense of belonging, acceptance. I found my peace in this world through this person whom I am going to share the rest of life with. And the things that will create this for me will be her values, personality style, and interaction style and the way she helps me feel. I am not looking for 100%. I would be happy with 70% of what I am looking for....but most are looking for 100%. The perfect couple is a myth. Life is a comprise. Relationships are a compromise.

Ultimately it comes down to the difference between the people who are serious about commitment and the people who are chasing a fantasy.

Personality: I am looking for a quiet gal.

1-humor. Someone who has a well-developed sense of humor.

2-Serious enough that we can talk about deeper issues in life.

3-Supportive:plenty of praise and stands behind me no matter what.

4-Intellect

5-Emotional:  Who is emotionally expressive.

6-Honest: doesn't play games but is direct

7-Sensual

8-Stable:

9-Responsible: meaning someone I can relied upon to do what she says she will do

10-Independent

11-Confident

Socially:

- Homebody.

-Part-time socialize: likes to stay in, but will go out once in a while

-Dinner with the family, one night a week we go out just two of us

Relationship:

-romantic

-Willing to share responsibility for money

-highly sexual charged

-affectionate

-Emotionally expressive : articulates her feelings

Physically: slim to medium

In the eyes of the right woman

Woman who fit the dress are a dime a dozen--its the woman who helps me feel, the one who give me the experience I want who I am willing to take a leap with. I want to forged a connection. I am who I am, I know what I want and if you don't like it, someone else will. Maybe you won't fall in love with me at first sight, but give me a minute. I might sneak up on you if you are not careful. There is someone out there who wants me precisely for what I have to offer. It would be cool if I had someone. It would be fun if I had someone.

Past relationships:

1-my biggest problem and frustration with relationship is that I need alot of attention. Sexually and emotionally. I need someone who will call me everyday. I need someone who want to be risky with me

sexually.

Most woman are too afraid of getting hurt.  I don't want to be someone who is unhappy, she is going to bring me down. She is happy at level zero. Now i've suddenly gone from ten to five and I'm sinking ast.

Thar's not what I am looking for in a relationship. I'm better off by myself.

What do i have to offer to her?

What is she going to take from me?

Most woman are afraid to share space with a partner after years of living alone. They think they are choosy, but deep down, they are scared to mess up a good thing that they've got going with themselves. Or they been hurt so many times...had several disappointment in rapid succession that she thinks that relationships are just not in the cards for her...so why bother.

I am ok even if I never find the special person who I am looking for. This means that if I am alone, I am not a bad person to do it with.Whatever happens it;s not going to change my life. I realized that the things I really enjoy, the things that give me the most pleasure and make life worth living, are all things I already have. A walk in the park, Some quality time with family and friends. An hour in the sun, just me and my mp3 player. No woman can give these things to me or take them away, so there's no reason to act as though the world will come to an end if that random conversation with Jane doesn't develop into a relationship.

When people are really confident, they are not hungry for external validation. they do not enter into a relationship looking for evidence--as to whether they are okay or not. They have already held that debate--and won. Confident people care calm without being aloof or arrogant. This sense of peace comes from an awareness of their authentic self, the part of you that can be found at your absolute core. if on the other hand, you are unsure of yourself, you'll be very vulnerable to the whims of others. It could be something as minor as someone being rude to you in line at the grocery store. you maybe offended all day, wondering why would she treat me that way. Was it because she didn't think I was important person. But the truth is that you already know who you are, you are neitehr validated nor deflated by what someone else does, because you are neither validated nor deflated by what someone else does, because you haven't given your power to anyone else.

Woman sense desperation: You don't have what you need, so you're going to take it from me. If she lonely, she will take my independence and my free time. Desperate people are leeches, they will suck you dry and then still not leave.Fear fuels your desperation. You're like a hungry bird..."feed me, love me" over and over again.80 % of all question are just statement in disguise, what they're really going is saying. There's nothing wrong with me. I shouldn't still be single. I'm good enough to be married. When someone ask, "What's wrong with me?..they are feeling there is something wrong with them. If you're telling yourself you're desperate and you must have a woman, you will reek of fear and weakness and desperation. if you're telling yourself things like, "I must, " "I have to" and It's a catastrophe if she doesn't love me, then you are putting yourself into a state of desperation and panic, and state that scream. I need I want.

-If i don't get married by 40, I'll die alone

-there must be something wrong with me because no one want to marry me

-I need her approval or she will dump me like the rest

-if she love and accept me, then I can finally feel okay about myself.

-No past relationship have worked out, so I never let myself believe

that there is one that really will work

Like Donald Trump in negotiating a deal, they cannot act desperate. Believe me, the second they show their potential partner how bad they need the deal, the jig is up.

I am a mix of Tom Hanks ...you sensitive dream guy in Sleepless in Settle. The best friend, a father, a nurturer. I am funny and dry. Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck,,passionate and emotionally expressive type. If I want you, you will know it, neither rain, nor hail nor sleet will stop me from going after you. And finally Richard Gere from Pretty Woman. I am generous, stable, cultured and sophisticated. a man who comes with a lifestyle.

What i want is a online connection that will spill over into real life and you click. The email, phone conversation will make us feel so connected that our first date will be a easy. There is no getting-to-know-each-other awkwardness because we already done that online. I am going to invest a whole lot of time, effort and energy into creating a relationship. I will never love anything about someone. if i did then I am wearing rose-colored glass and fooling myself.

Some woman are still into going out. They already getting a sense of belonging from a group

May compare themselves with others, better looking or not but I got

the nice eyes. People respond to energy rather than looks.

I am a beautiful human being

I am wise and experienced

There is so much more to me than my looks

My happiness depends on me

I don't want anything from anyone

I have everything I need

I have a great heart and a warm spirit

I have a wonderful family who love me

I am satisfied with who I've become

I am a great catch

I love being by myself

Each of us makes a statement with the way we present ourselves, conduct ourselves and interact with others. I seek a woman who has a nurturing style. Its the way a woman makes me feel that ultimately determines the longevity and quality of my relationship. I am not going to waste my time pursuing a woman when all appearance signal "proceed with caution". The first thing that goes through a man nice when they meet a woman is what kind of sexual partner she would be. Stop thinking of sex as  luxury and put it hight on your priority list. Being sexually satisfied and feeling wanted by your partner are legitimate and healthy part of a relationship. You never get what you want in this life unless you believe that you deserve it

The truth is that powerful, successful woman can be terrifying to man. Men like to be hero, the rescuer, the knight in shining armor. Men like to feel needed, and in fact indispensable, because they believe this puts them in a positions of control and security. If he looks at you and see that you have a solid job, financial security, and a great social life, he wonders what he has to offer you. When he can't come up with a good enough answer, the intimidation factor sets in—he fears that you won't want him. So many woman give off the message that a man is merely a convience for their pleasure often find their men going off to be with woman who actually have some needs. It is not so much that a man doesn't like strong woman---because men love independent, smart woman, but when a woman's strenght trumps his whole reason for being, he would rather find someone who really need him. They need to feel as though they are vitally involved..have something to offer and are in a position of power in the relationship. That

doesn't mean that they have to be the  boss or that you have to be helpless. But you have to let a man know he as something vital to offer.

They may look at you and say, "Why would she be interested in me? She's got education, money, social connections, What do I have to offer? If they think the answer is nothing...some otherwise good-quality guys might be intimidated. And you might think."Hey, that's his problem. If he is that weak, then I don't want him anyway. I am who I am and I'm not going to dumb it down to make him feel good..but I have to tell you...everyone likes to be wanted, and he might just be worth going to the trouble to poing out that even thought many parts of your life are working really well, this doesn't mean that you don't have unmet wants and needs just like everyone else.

A competent, self-reliant woman you need to be able to show men that having your act together doesn't mean you don't need them.

If you know what a man need and you give it to him, his experience of you will be of a high quality. He will be drawn to you, he will seek you out and he will soak up the validation that you have to offer. The more he falls in love with you, the greater power you have to validate him and the more he will value you for his balance in the world. Men need to know that you find them attractive and are proud to be seen

with them.  Every man need to feel a sense of acceptance and a strong sense of belonging to someone. If you provide that for him, if you become his "soft place to fall" you will become a vital part of his life and his future.  Men need to feel sexual powerful. They need to feel virile and attractive.

Again..once you identified your man's needs, and make the value judgment that those needs are healthy, it is time to make a very focused "to do" list. Once his need are identified, and you make them priority, you are going to be building power regarding your ability to bond with this man and solidify a committed relationship.

You have to negotiate the spirit of giving. You need to find out what your partner want and focus on these things just as much as you focus on what you want. You have to ask: "How can I get the other person the most of what he or she wants?" You have to decide whether those things that you can and will bring to your relationship. You have to smooth their fears. You have to ask...All right, I want this person, but what's it going to cost me? What do I have to give up? What am i going to have to give up to get what I want?

Most people are afraid to commit because

-avoid divorce and its financial risk

-feel that relationship will require too many changes and compromise

-waiting for the perfect soul mate and he hasn't appeared

-they want to enjoy the single life as long as they can

When both people in a relationship get their need met, then that relationship is going to successful. But there's not a soul on earth who can met your needs if you don't have a clue to what they are. Once you know what you want...ask for it. Things don't have the same meaning for each of you. and if you think that you shouldn't have to tell your partner what your need are...then you've been reading too many romance novels. Your partner's not a mind reader and until you can be clear about what you want, it;s difficult for him to address what you're after.  Don't think that it doesn't count if you have to tell

your partner what she or he do to make you happy. Loving, caring , considerate actions can still be meaningful and come from the heart even if they weren't his or her ideas. Who cares whose ideas they were if you need for affection or respect is being met the way you want it to be?

You want to be her safe haven against the all the stressful stuff that the rest of the work, his job, family, and friends may heap on him.

Intimacy means closeness and vulnerability. Relationships in general are all about taking down your defenses and leaving yourself open. That means trusting people enough to give them power to emotionally injure you.

Type of guys:

1-hit er and quit er- use woman as often as possible. they still want sex, but their need for intimacy and female companionship end at the foot of the bed, They will say virtually anything to get a girl naked.

2-Kiss and teller: interested in a trophy for the sole purpose of having a story to tell. They can't wait to parade you around

3-Controller

Ice beaker question:

-What's your favorite books?

-What do you like to do in your free time?

-After an exhausting day at work, what i the first thing you like to do?

-Which family member are you closet to?

-What is your favorite movie?

-What have you learned about past relationships, in terms of yourself?

-Have you had to overcome any unusual obstacles or hardships in your life?

-What is the single most compelling reason you can give a guy to be

interested in you?

-How long have you been in your job? In you career

-How long have you lived in one place?

-How long have you had your car?

-Have you ever had a committed relationship before?For how long?

-Do you have a retirement account.

-Who are the key people in your life?

-Tell me about your family..how often to you to them?

-what do you do to make yourself feel better when you are having a

miserable day?

I crave acceptance, validation, companionship. I am burned out on the dating circuit and tired of starting over and over again. I know a lot of men who play the field and measure their virility by the number of woman they can conquer.

Good or bad, I am who I am. I am going to take the best of what I 've got, and make people take notice.

DATING : TO LOVE IS GOOD

To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is--solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves. Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate--?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.

Of what is and what was

What are you thinking?

Confusion within my heart

Uncertain if your love for me is true

Is it love or just me wondering?

Tension builds up

Confused with feeling toward you

What did you say?

Forgot again?

Sadness builds up

Accumulated by feelings

Of what is and what was

Can you tell me?

Understand me

I love you without knowing

I care without wondering

Is it too late or is it too early?

What is it?

Friendship or relationship?

Controlling my feelings

Torture by my own thoughts

Unsure of what is true

Is it just a figure of my imagination?

Thought that you care

Thought that we were meant to be

Only my mind is always wondering

Can you please tell me and end all this torture

You know that I care

You know what to do

Please hold me to end all the curiousity

Of what is and what was

Loving you or hating you

Makes me so unclear

Tell me that you do not care

With all your might

Or tell me that I am just imagining

Of what is and what was

Thoughts of loneliness

Close out to the whole world

Only you have the strength

To open me up

For me to love once again

Dreaming of what is to happen

Knowing what is to continue

Torturing of my mind

Tearing of my heart

Pain in my soul

Of what is and what was

PERSONAL: THE REASON WHY YOU ARE SINGLE

 At this point in my life, I’m ready for something serious and meaningful. I’m ready to settle down and commit to creating a great relationship. It really difficult to tell who' actually out there searching for a real relationship. If your wishy-washy, flakes and going to ghost me, don't reply to me.

There’s no question I’ve come to despise more  is the question you just asked me. It’s basically asking, “What’s your value and worth?” within the first time of meeting someone. I just don't think it matter. I just don't thing that is the best question to start off with a total stranger.  I am more than my job. What type of physician I am shouldn't matter as long as I am a kind, caring responsible individual? Right??? Would I not consider you a good candidate for a relationship because you are real estate lawyer instead of enternamaint lawyer or if you were  first grade teacher instead of sixth grade teacher?

Lately, I am meeting women who do not want a serious relationship. They just need a man to enjoy a few moments with and walk away from at will.If  you can't make any adjustment to our lifestyle.That is a sign of a woman not ready to take dating seriously.By and large, women always relinquish part of their freedom for them to be taken up by a man.A woman after a serious relationship will try to adjust to a man’s whims, or even pretend to, as she works to restore her independence within the relationship. If Never responds to calls or texts promptly that is another sign that she not interested

You're always one decision away from a totally different life. If you dig a bad boy, that’s your prerogative. But please stop complaining about never finding good guys while simultaneously continuing to date the same type of person over and over again! When an attractive woman keeps repeating she has abysmal luck dating, I… well, I don’t exactly sympathize

Single is no longer a lack of options — but a choice.Your perpetual dissatisfaction is paired with incredibly high standards and over-focusing on “Chemistry.Character is more important. If you think you “deserve” a certain kind of partner – and yet you’ve NEVER gotten him, you need to start considering another kind of partner.The key is in letting go of the image you’ve been holding onto.When Did Being “Too Nice” Become a Character Flaw?It’s terrible to realize that you confused excitement, passion, and anxiety for love, and then tried to build a life with a self-centered, impulsive person who made you feel agony, ecstasy and insecurity…. But who was never able to truly love you back.

You are single because of you, not because of the people you date.Single is no longer a lack of options — but a choice.Your perpetual dissatisfaction is paired with incredibly high standards and the illusion of infinite choice

The REAL Reason You’re Still Single:You don’t want the people who want you.The people you want don’t want you in return. You have a choice to find an amazing partner and create an amazing life – if you give up that IMAGE that you have of dating a men who was Just. Like. You.If you’re single, and never find anybody “good enough,” chances are that you do the this. If you ever wants to get married, it would probably make sense to start appreciating the 6s and 7’s and choose the one that shares the same values and can be your best friend for life.

If you only likes 9’s and 10’s… but those same men always a) prefer younger women or b) ultimately break her heart because they’re egotistical, selfish narcissists who only want younger women and aren’t ready to settle down… should you keep holding out for them? Wouldn’t it make much more sense to marry one of the devoted 7’s who think she’s the bee’s knees?Apparently not. Because that would be settling. And settling is bad. That is why you will remain single indefinitely

If you think you “deserve” a certain kind of partner – not just someone who is rich, hot, and brilliant, but a rich, hot, brilliant partner who STICKS AROUND – and yet you’ve NEVER gotten him, you need to start considering another kind of partner.The key is in letting go of the image you’ve been holding onto.By thinking you’re “better” than everyone who wants you, you’re eliminating the greatest source of love around – the person who wants you! And you may be surprised to find that you can be EXTREMELY happy with someone who doesn’t meet your preconceived image of your ideal mate.

So many woman are over-focusing on “Chemistry. They actually believe that ‘chemistry feeling’ is a reliable source of information as to whether someone is going to be a good long-term partner for them..Never prioritize chemistry over character.In fact, the exact opposite is often true: The people who are most likely to make you feel “chemistry”.are often the ones who are the most emotionally (or literally) dangerous for you to get involved with.Trust me: It’s terrible to realize that you confused excitement, passion, and anxiety for love, and then tried to build a life with a self-centered, impulsive person who made you feel agony, ecstasy and insecurity…. But who was never able to truly love you back.
For example: A mercurial, highly sexual, unpredictable woman will make your heart pound in a way that the loving, kind kindergarten teacher with a fondness for Dansco clogs will probably not. Likewise, a rakish, troubled bad-boy will light you on fire, in a way that the earnest CPA who cares enough to iron his shirt and show up on time won’t. But who do you want to try and build a life with?

Finding Something Better Than a Chemistry.Sparks burn out quite quickly; what you want in a relationship are coals. They may not be as easy to recognize but they build a much stronger flame that lasts a lot longer

ARTICLE :It's Time to Break Up Facebook - The New York Times

The last time I saw Mark Zuckerberg was in the summer of 2017, several months before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. We met at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., office and drove to his house, in a quiet, leafy neighborhood. We spent an hour or two together while his toddler daughter cruised around. We talked politics mostly, a little about Facebook, a bit about our families. When the shadows grew long, I had to head out. I hugged his wife, Priscilla, and said goodbye to Mark.

Since then, Mark’s personal reputation and the reputation of Facebook have taken a nose-dive. The company’s mistakes — the sloppy privacy practices that dropped tens of millions of users’ data into a political consulting firm’s lap; the slow response to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and fake news; and the unbounded drive to capture ever more of our time and attention — dominate the headlines. It’s been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven’t worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility.

Mark is still the same person I watched hug his parents as they left our dorm’s common room at the beginning of our sophomore year. He is the same person who procrastinated studying for tests, fell in love with his future wife while in line for the bathroom at a party and slept on a mattress on the floor in a small apartment years after he could have afforded much more. In other words, he’s human. But it’s his very humanity that makes his unchecked power so problematic.

Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day. Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer, because Mark controls around 60 percent of voting shares. Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered. He sets the rules for how to distinguish violent and incendiary speech from the merely offensive, and he can choose to shut down a competitor by acquiring, blocking or copying it.

MARK’S INFLUENCE IS STAGGERING, FAR BEYOND THAT OF ANYONE ELSE IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR OR IN GOVERNMENT.

Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks. I’m disappointed in myself and the early Facebook team for not thinking more about how the News Feed algorithm could change our culture, influence elections and empower nationalist leaders. And I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them.

The government must hold Mark accountable. For too long, lawmakers have marveled at Facebook’s explosive growth and overlooked their responsibility to ensure that Americans are protected and markets are competitive. Any day now, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to impose a $5 billion fine on the company, but that is not enough; nor is Facebook’s offer to appoint some kind of privacy czar. After Mark’s congressional testimony last year, there should have been calls for him to truly reckon with his mistakes. Instead the legislators who questioned him were derided as too old and out of touch to understand how tech works. That’s the impression Mark wanted Americans to have, because it means little will change.

We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American.

It is time to break up Facebook.

We already have the tools we need to check the domination of Facebook. We just seem to have forgotten about them.

America was built on the idea that power should not be concentrated in any one person, because we are all fallible. That’s why the founders created a system of checks and balances. They didn’t need to foresee the rise of Facebook to understand the threat that gargantuan companies would pose to democracy. Jefferson and Madison were voracious readers of Adam Smith, who believed that monopolies prevent the competition that spurs innovation and leads to economic growth.

A century later, in response to the rise of the oil, railroad and banking trusts of the Gilded Age, the Ohio Republican John Sherman said on the floor of Congress: “If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale of any of the necessities of life. If we would not submit to an emperor, we should not submit to an autocrat of trade with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity.” The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 outlawed monopolies. More legislation followed in the 20th century, creating legal and regulatory structures to promote competition and hold the biggest companies accountable. The Department of Justice broke up monopolies like Standard Oil and AT&T.

For many people today, it’s hard to imagine government doing much of anything right, let alone breaking up a company like Facebook. This isn’t by coincidence.

Starting in the 1970s, a small but dedicated group of economists, lawyers and policymakers sowed the seeds of our cynicism. Over the next 40 years, they financed a network of think tanks, journals, social clubs, academic centers and media outlets to teach an emerging generation that private interests should take precedence over public ones. Their gospel was simple: “Free” markets are dynamic and productive, while government is bureaucratic and ineffective. By the mid-1980s, they had largely managed to relegate energetic antitrust enforcement to the history books.

This shift, combined with business-friendly tax and regulatory policy, ushered in a period of mergers and acquisitions that created megacorporations. In the past 20 years, more than 75 percent of American industries, from airlines to pharmaceuticals, have experienced increased concentration, and the average size of public companies has tripled. The results are a decline in entrepreneurship, stalled productivity growth, and higher prices and fewer choices for consumers.

The same thing is happening in social media and digital communications. Because Facebook so dominates social networking, it faces no market-based accountability. This means that every time Facebook messes up, we repeat an exhausting pattern: first outrage, then disappointment and, finally, resignation.

In 2005, I was in Facebook’s first office, on Emerson Street in downtown Palo Alto, when I read the news that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was acquiring the social networking site Myspace for $580 million. The overhead lights were off, and a group of us were pecking away on our keyboards, our 21-year-old faces half-illuminated by the glow of our screens. I heard a “whoa,” and the news then ricocheted silently through the room, delivered by AOL Instant Messenger. My eyes widened. Really, $580 million?

Facebook was competing with Myspace, albeit obliquely. We were focused on college students at that point, but we had real identities while Myspace had fictions. Our users were more engaged, visiting daily, if not hourly. We believed Facebook surpassed Myspace in quality and would easily displace it given enough time and money. If Myspace was worth $580 million, Facebook could be worth at least double.


From our earliest days, Mark used the word “domination” to describe our ambitions, with no hint of irony or humility. Back then, we competed with a whole host of social networks, not just Myspace, but also Friendster, Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJournal and others. The pressure to beat them spurred innovation and led to many of the features that distinguish Facebook: simple, beautiful interfaces, the News Feed, a tie to real-world identities and more.

FROM OUR EARLIEST DAYS, MARK USED THE WORD “DOMINATION” TO DESCRIBE OUR AMBITIONS.

It was this drive to compete that led Mark to acquire, over the years, dozens of other companies, including Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014. There was nothing unethical or suspicious, in my view, in these moves.

One night during the summer of the Myspace sale, I remember driving home from work with Mark, back to the house we shared with several engineers and designers. I was in the passenger seat of the Infiniti S.U.V. that our investor Peter Thiel had bought for Mark to replace the unreliable used Jeep that he had been driving.

As we turned right off Valparaiso Avenue, Mark confessed the immense pressure he felt. “Now that we employ so many people …” he said, trailing off. “We just really can’t fail.”

Facebook had gone from a project developed in our dorm room and chaotic summer houses to a serious company with lawyers and a human resources department. We had around 50 employees, and their families relied on Facebook to put food on the table. I gazed out the window and thought to myself, It’s never going to stop. The bigger we get, the harder we’ll have to work to keep growing.

Over a decade later, Facebook has earned the prize of domination. It is worth half a trillion dollars and commands, by my estimate, more than 80 percent of the world’s social networking revenue. It is a powerful monopoly, eclipsing all of its rivals and erasing competition from the social networking category. This explains why, even during the annus horribilis of 2018, Facebook’s earnings per share increased by an astounding 40 percent compared with the year before. (I liquidated my Facebook shares in 2012, and I don’t invest directly in any social media companies.)

Facebook’s monopoly is also visible in its usage statistics. About 70 percent of American adults use social media, and a vast majority are on Facebook products. Over two-thirds use the core site, a third use Instagram, and a fifth use WhatsApp. By contrast, fewer than a third report using Pinterest, LinkedIn or Snapchat. What started out as lighthearted entertainment has become the primary way that people of all ages communicate online.

Dominating the Market

The total number of users across Facebook’s platforms far exceeds the number on any rival platform.

Even when people want to quit Facebook, they don’t have any meaningful alternative, as we saw in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Worried about their privacy and lacking confidence in Facebook’s good faith, users across the world started a “Delete Facebook” movement. According to the Pew Research Center, a quarter deleted their accounts from their phones, but many did so only temporarily. I heard more than one friend say, “I’m getting off Facebook altogether — thank God for Instagram,” not realizing that Instagram was a Facebook subsidiary. In the end people did not leave the company’s platforms en masse. After all, where would they go?

Facebook’s dominance is not an accident of history. The company’s strategy was to beat every competitor in plain view, and regulators and the government tacitly — and at times explicitly — approved. In one of the government’s few attempts to rein in the company, the F.T.C. in 2011 issued a consent decree that Facebook not share any private information beyond what users already agreed to. Facebook largely ignored the decree. Last month, the day after the company predicted in an earnings call that it would need to pay up to $5 billion as a penalty for its negligence — a slap on the wrist — Facebook’s shares surged 7 percent, adding $30 billion to its value, six times the size of the fine.

The F.T.C.’s biggest mistake was to allow Facebook to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp. In 2012, the newer platforms were nipping at Facebook’s heels because they had been built for the smartphone, where Facebook was still struggling to gain traction. Mark responded by buying them, and the F.T.C. approved.

Neither Instagram nor WhatsApp had any meaningful revenue, but both were incredibly popular. The Instagram acquisition guaranteed Facebook would preserve its dominance in photo networking, and WhatsApp gave it a new entry into mobile real-time messaging. Now, the founders of Instagram and WhatsApp have left the company after clashing with Mark over his management of their platforms. But their former properties remain Facebook’s, driving much of its recent growth.

When it hasn’t acquired its way to dominance, Facebook has used its monopoly position to shut out competing companies or has copied their technology.

The News Feed algorithm reportedly prioritized videos created through Facebook over videos from competitors, like YouTube and Vimeo. In 2012, Twitter introduced a video network called Vine that featured six-second videos. That same day, Facebook blocked Vine from hosting a tool that let its users search for their Facebook friends while on the new network. The decision hobbled Vine, which shut down four years later.

Snapchat posed a different threat. Snapchat’s Stories and impermanent messaging options made it an attractive alternative to Facebook and Instagram. And unlike Vine, Snapchat wasn’t interfacing with the Facebook ecosystem; there was no obvious way to handicap the company or shut it out. So Facebook simply copied it.

Facebook’s version of Snapchat’s stories and disappearing messages proved wildly successful, at Snapchat’s expense. At an all-hands meeting in 2016, Mark told Facebook employees not to let their pride get in the way of giving users what they want. According to Wired magazine, “Zuckerberg’s message became an informal slogan at Facebook: ‘Don’t be too proud to copy.’”

(There is little regulators can do about this tactic: Snapchat patented its “ephemeral message galleries,” but copyright law does not extend to the abstract concept itself.)

WOULD-BE COMPETITORS CAN’T RAISE THE MONEY TO TAKE ON FACEBOOK.

As a result of all this, would-be competitors can’t raise the money to take on Facebook. Investors realize that if a company gets traction, Facebook will copy its innovations, shut it down or acquire it for a relatively modest sum. So despite an extended economic expansion, increasing interest in high-tech start-ups, an explosion of venture capital and growing public distaste for Facebook, no major social networking company has been founded since the fall of 2011.

As markets become more concentrated, the number of new start-up businesses declines. This holds true in other high-tech areas dominated by single companies, like search (controlled by Google) and e-commerce (taken over by Amazon). Meanwhile, there has been plenty of innovation in areas where there is no monopolistic domination, such as in workplace productivity (Slack, Trello, Asana), urban transportation (Lyft, Uber, Lime, Bird) and cryptocurrency exchanges (Ripple, Coinbase, Circle).

I don’t blame Mark for his quest for domination. He has demonstrated nothing more nefarious than the virtuous hustle of a talented entrepreneur. Yet he has created a leviathan that crowds out entrepreneurship and restricts consumer choice. It’s on our government to ensure that we never lose the magic of the invisiblehand. How did we allow this to happen?

Since the 1970s, courts have become increasingly hesitant to break up companies or block mergers unless consumers are paying inflated prices that would be lower in a competitive market. But a narrow reliance on whether or not consumers have experienced price gouging fails to take into account the full cost of market domination. It doesn’t recognize that we also want markets to be competitive to encourage innovation and to hold power in check. And it is out of step with the history of antitrust law. Two of the last major antitrust suits, against AT&T and IBM in the 1980s, were grounded in the argument that they had used their size to stifle innovation and crush competition.

As the Columbia law professor Tim Wu writes, “It is a disservice to the laws and their intent to retain such a laserlike focus on price effects as the measure of all that antitrust was meant to do.”

Facebook is the perfect case on which to reverse course, precisely because Facebook makes its money from targeted advertising, meaning users do not pay to use the service. But it is not actually free, and it certainly isn’t harmless.

WE PAY FOR FACEBOOK WITH OUR DATA AND OUR ATTENTION, AND BY EITHER MEASURE IT DOESN’T COME CHEAP.

Facebook’s business model is built on capturing as much of our attention as possible to encourage people to create and share more information about who they are and who they want to be. We pay for Facebook with our data and our attention, and by either measure it doesn’t come cheap.

I was on the original News Feed team (my name is on the patent), and that product now gets billions of hours of attention and pulls in unknowable amounts of data each year. The average Facebook user spends an hour a day on the platform; Instagram users spend 53 minutes a day scrolling through pictures and videos. They create immense amounts of data — not just likes and dislikes, but how many seconds they watch a particular video — that Facebook uses to refine its targeted advertising. Facebook also collects data from partner companies and apps, without most users knowing about it, according to testing by The Wall Street Journal.

Some days, lying on the floor next to my 1-year-old son as he plays with his dinosaurs, I catch myself scrolling through Instagram, waiting to see if the next image will be more beautiful than the last. What am I doing? I know it’s not good for me, or for my son, and yet I do it anyway.

The choice is mine, but it doesn’t feel like a choice. Facebook seeps into every corner of our lives to capture as much of our attention and data as possible and, without any alternative, we make the trade.

The vibrant marketplace that once drove Facebook and other social media companies to compete to come up with better products has virtually disappeared. This means there’s less chance of start-ups developing healthier, less exploitative social media platforms. It also means less accountability on issues like privacy.

Just last month, Facebook seemingly tried to bury news that it had stored tens of millions of user passwords in plain text format, which thousands of Facebook employees could see. Competition alone wouldn’t necessarily spur privacy protection — regulation is required to ensure accountability — but Facebook’s lock on the market guarantees that users can’t protest by moving to alternative platforms.

The most problematic aspect of Facebook’s power is Mark’s unilateral control over speech. There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people.

Facebook engineers write algorithms that select which users’ comments or experiences end up displayed in the News Feeds of friends and family. These rules are proprietary and so complex that many Facebook employees themselves don’t understand them.

In 2014, the rules favored curiosity-inducing “clickbait” headlines. In 2016, they enabled the spread of fringe political views and fake news, which made it easier for Russian actors to manipulate the American electorate. In January 2018, Mark announced that the algorithms would favor non-news content shared by friends and news from “trustworthy” sources, which his engineers interpreted — to the confusion of many — as a boost for anything in the category of “politics, crime, tragedy.”

Facebook has responded to many of the criticisms of how it manages speech by hiring thousands of contractors to enforce the rules that Mark and senior executives develop. After a few weeks of training, these contractors decide which videos count as hate speech or free speech, which images are erotic and which are simply artistic, and which live streams are too violent to be broadcast. (The Verge reported that some of these moderators, working through a vendor in Arizona, were paid $28,800 a year, got limited breaks and faced significant mental health risks.)

As if Facebook’s opaque algorithms weren’t enough, last year we learned that Facebook executives had permanently deleted their own messages from the platform, erasing them from the inboxes of recipients; the justification was corporate security concerns. When I look at my years of Facebook messages with Mark now, it’s just a long stream of my own light-blue comments, clearly written in response to words he had once sent me. (Facebook now offers this as a feature to all users.)

The most extreme example of Facebook manipulating speech happened in Myanmar in late 2017. Mark said in a Vox interview that he personally made the decision to delete the private messages of Facebook users who were encouraging genocide there. “I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call,” he said, “and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims, ‘Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place.’ And then the same thing on the other side.”

Mark made a call: “We stop those messages from going through.” Most people would agree with his decision, but it’s deeply troubling that he made it with no accountability to any independent authority or government. Facebook could, in theory, delete en masse the messages of Americans, too, if its leadership decided it didn’t like them.

Mark used to insist that Facebook was just a “social utility,” a neutral platform for people to communicate what they wished. Now he recognizes that Facebook is both a platform and a publisher and that it is inevitably making decisions about values. The company’s own lawyers have argued in court that Facebook is a publisher and thus entitled to First Amendment protection.

No one at Facebook headquarters is choosing what single news story everyone in America wakes up to, of course. But they do decide whether it will be an article from a reputable outlet or a clip from “The Daily Show,” a photo from a friend’s wedding or an incendiary call to kill others.

Mark knows that this is too much power and is pursuing a twofold strategy to mitigate it. He is pivoting Facebook’s focus toward encouraging more private, encrypted messaging that Facebook’s employees can’t see, let alone control. Second, he is hoping for friendly oversight from regulators and other industry executives.

Late last year, he proposed an independent commission to handle difficult content moderation decisions by social media platforms. It would afford an independent check, Mark argued, on Facebook’s decisions, and users could appeal to it if they disagreed. But its decisions would not have the force of law, since companies would voluntarily participate.

In an op-ed essay in The Washington Post in March, he wrote, “Lawmakers often tell me we have too much power over speech, and I agree.” And he went even further than before, calling for more government regulation — not just on speech, but also on privacy and interoperability, the ability of consumers to seamlessly leave one network and transfer their profiles, friend connections, photos and other data to another.

FACEBOOK ISN’T AFRAID OF A FEW MORE RULES. IT’S AFRAID OF AN ANTITRUST CASE.

I don’t think these proposals were made in bad faith. But I do think they’re an attempt to head off the argument that regulators need to go further and break up the company. Facebook isn’t afraid of a few more rules. It’s afraid of an antitrust case and of the kind of accountability that real government oversight would bring.

We don’t expect calcified rules or voluntary commissions to work to regulate drug companies, health care companies, car manufacturers or credit card providers. Agencies oversee these industries to ensure that the private market works for the public good. In these cases, we all understand that government isn’t an external force meddling in an organic market; it’s what makes a dynamic and fair market possible in the first place. This should be just as true for social networking as it is for air travel or pharmaceuticals.

In the summer of 2006, Yahoo offered us $1 billion for Facebook. I desperately wanted Mark to say yes. Even my small slice of the company would have made me a millionaire several times over. For a 22-year-old scholarship kid from small-town North Carolina, that kind of money was unimaginable. I wasn’t alone — just about every other person at the company wanted the same.

It was taboo to talk about it openly, but I finally asked Mark when we had a moment alone, “How are you feeling about Yahoo?” I got a shrug and a one-line answer: “I just don’t know if I want to work for Terry Semel,” Yahoo’s chief executive.

Outside of a couple of gigs in college, Mark had never had a real boss and seemed entirely uninterested in the prospect. I didn’t like the idea much myself, but I would have traded having a boss for several million dollars any day of the week. Mark’s drive was infinitely stronger. Domination meant domination, and the hustle was just too delicious.

Mark may never have a boss, but he needs to have some check on his power. The American government needs to do two things: break up Facebook’s monopoly and regulate the company to make it more accountable to the American people.

First, Facebook should be separated into multiple companies. The F.T.C., in conjunction with the Justice Department, should enforce antitrust laws by undoing the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions and banning future acquisitions for several years. The F.T.C. should have blocked these mergers, but it’s not too late to act. There is precedent for correcting bad decisions — as recently as 2009, Whole Foods settled antitrust complaints by selling off the Wild Oats brand and stores that it had bought a few years earlier.

There is some evidence that we may be headed in this direction. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for reversing the Facebook mergers, and in February, the F.T.C. announced the creation of a task force to monitor competition among tech companies and review previous mergers.

How would a breakup work? Facebook would have a brief period to spin off the Instagram and WhatsApp businesses, and the three would become distinct companies, most likely publicly traded. Facebook shareholders would initially hold stock in the new companies, although Mark and other executives would probably be required to divest their management shares.

Until recently, WhatsApp and Instagram were administered as independent platforms inside the parent company, so that should make the process easier. But time is of the essence: Facebook is working quickly to integrate the three, which would make it harder for the F.T.C. to split them up.

Some economists are skeptical that breaking up Facebook would spur that much competition, because Facebook, they say, is a “natural” monopoly. Natural monopolies have emerged in areas like water systems and the electrical grid, where the price of entering the business is very high — because you have to lay pipes or electrical lines — but it gets cheaper and cheaper to add each additional customer. In other words, the monopoly arises naturally from the circumstances of the business, rather than a company’s illegal maneuvering. In addition, defenders of natural monopolies often make the case that they benefit consumers because they are able to provide services more cheaply than anyone else.

Facebook is indeed more valuable when there are more people on it: There are more connections for a user to make and more content to be shared. But the cost of entering the social network business is not that high. And unlike with pipes and electricity, there is no good argument that the country benefits from having only one dominant social networking company.

Still others worry that the breakup of Facebook or other American tech companies could be a national security problem. Because advancements in artificial intelligence require immense amounts of data and computing power, only large companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon can afford these investments, they say. If American companies become smaller, the Chinese will outpace us.

While serious, these concerns do not justify inaction. Even after a breakup, Facebook would be a hugely profitable business with billions to invest in new technologies — and a more competitive market would only encourage those investments. If the Chinese did pull ahead, our government could invest in research and development and pursue tactical trade policy, just as it is doing today to hold China’s 5G technology at bay.

The cost of breaking up Facebook would be next to zero for the government, and lots of people stand to gain economically. A ban on short-term acquisitions would ensure that competitors, and the investors who take a bet on them, would have the space to flourish. Digital advertisers would suddenly have multiple companies vying for their dollars.
Even Facebook shareholders would probably benefit, as shareholders often do in the years after a company’s split. The value of the companies that made up Standard Oil doubled within a year of its being dismantled and had increased by fivefold a few years later. Ten years after the 1984 breakup of AT&T, the value of its successor companies had tripled.

But the biggest winners would be the American people. Imagine a competitive market in which they could choose among one network that offered higher privacy standards, another that cost a fee to join but had little advertising and another that would allow users to customize and tweak their feeds as they saw fit. No one knows exactly what Facebook’s competitors would offer to differentiate themselves. That’s exactly the point.

The Justice Department faced similar questions of social costs and benefits with AT&T in the 1950s. AT&T had a monopoly on phone services and telecommunications equipment. The government filed suit under antitrust laws, and the case ended with a consent decree that required AT&T to release its patents and refrain from expanding into the nascent computer industry. This resulted in an explosion of innovation, greatly increasing follow-on patents and leading to the development of the semiconductor and modern computing. We would most likely not have iPhones or laptops without the competitive markets that antitrust action ushered in.

Adam Smith was right: Competition spurs growth and innovation.

Just breaking up Facebook is not enough. We need a new agency, empowered by Congress to regulate tech companies. Its first mandate should be to protect privacy.

The Europeans have made headway on privacy with the General Data Protection Regulation, a law that guarantees users a minimal level of protection. A landmark privacy bill in the United States should specify exactly what control Americans have over their digital information, require clearer disclosure to users and provide enough flexibility to the agency to exercise effective oversight over time. The agency should also be charged with guaranteeing basic interoperability across platforms.

Finally, the agency should create guidelines for acceptable speech on social media. This idea may seem un-American — we would never stand for a government agency censoring speech. But we already have limits on yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, child pornography, speech intended to provoke violence and false statements to manipulate stock prices. We will have to create similar standards that tech companies can use. These standards should of course be subject to the review of the courts, just as any other limits on speech are. But there is no constitutional right to harass others or live-stream violence.

IF WE DON’T HAVE PUBLIC SERVANTS SHAPING THESE POLICIES, CORPORATIONS WILL.

These are difficult challenges. I worry that government regulators will not be able to keep up with the pace of digital innovation. I worry that more competition in social networking might lead to a conservative Facebook and a liberal one, or that newer social networks might be less secure if government regulation is weak. But sticking with the status quo would be worse: If we don’t have public servants shaping these policies, corporations will.


Some people doubt that an effort to break up Facebook would win in the courts, given the hostility on the federal bench to antitrust action, or that this divided Congress would ever be able to muster enough consensus to create a regulatory agency for social media.

But even if breakup and regulation aren’t immediately successful, simply pushing for them will bring more oversight. The government’s case against Microsoft — that it illegally used its market power in operating systems to force its customers to use its web browser, Internet Explorer — ended in 2001 when George W. Bush’s administration abandoned its effort to break up the company. Yet that prosecution helped rein in Microsoft’s ambitions to dominate the early web.

Similarly, the Justice Department’s 1970s suit accusing IBM of illegally maintaining its monopoly on personal computer sales ended in a stalemate. But along the way, IBM changed many of its behaviors. It stopped bundling its hardware and software, chose an extremely open design for the operating system in its personal computers and did not exercise undue control over its suppliers. Professor Wu has written that this “policeman at the elbow” led IBM to steer clear “of anything close to anticompetitive conduct, for fear of adding to the case against it.”

We can expect the same from even an unsuccessful suit against Facebook.

Finally, an aggressive case against Facebook would persuade other behemoths like Google and Amazon to think twice about stifling competition in their own sectors, out of fear that they could be next. If the government were to use this moment to resurrect an effective competition standard that takes a broader view of the full cost of “free” products, it could affect a whole host of industries.

The alternative is bleak. If we do not take action, Facebook’s monopoly will become even more entrenched. With much of the world’s personal communications in hand, it can mine that data for patterns and trends, giving it an advantage over competitors for decades to come.

I take responsibility for not sounding the alarm earlier. Don Graham, a former Facebook board member, has accused those who criticize the company now as having “all the courage of the last man leaping on the pile at a football game.” The financial rewards I reaped from working at Facebook radically changed the trajectory of my life, and even after I cashed out, I watched in awe as the company grew. It took the 2016 election fallout and Cambridge Analytica to awaken me to the dangers of Facebook’s monopoly. But anyone suggesting that Facebook is akin to a pinned football player misrepresents its resilience and power.

An era of accountability for Facebook and other monopolies may be beginning. Collective anger is growing, and a new cohort of leaders has begun to emerge. On Capitol Hill, Representative David Cicilline has taken a special interest in checking the power of monopolies, and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ted Cruz have joined Senator Warren in calling for more oversight. Economists like Jason Furman, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, are speaking out about monopolies, and a host of legal scholars like Lina Khan, Barry Lynn and Ganesh Sitaraman are plotting a way forward.

This movement of public servants, scholars and activists deserves our support. Mark Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook, but our government can.

Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, is a co-chairman of the Economic Security Project and a senior adviser at the Roosevelt Institute.

PERSONAL: RELATIONSHIP IS A MIRROR

Relationship is a mirror. Every moment the other reveals you, exposes you. The closer the relationship, the clearer is the mirror.Many people seek this in external objects or people. I’m sure you’ve heard people proclaim: “I’ll be happy if he did this or she said that” or “If I only got that job, new house, baby.” If a person seeks a partner to complete them, conflicts arise.
It is not your partner’s job to make you happy. It is your job to make you happy. It is your partner’s job to make themselves happy.

Understand that it is up to you to make yourself happy, it is NOT the job of your spouse. I am not saying you shouldn’t do nice things for each other, or that your partner can’t make you happy sometimes. I am just saying don’t lay expectations on your partner to “make you happy.” It is not their responsibility. Figure out as individuals what makes you happy as an individual, be happy yourself, then you each bring that to the relationship

A lot is made about “sacrifices” in a relationship. You are supposed to keep the relationship happy by consistently sacrificing yourself for your partner and their wants and needs.There is some truth to that. Every relationship requires each person to consciously choose to give something up at times.

Shitty, codependent relationships have an inherent stability because you’re both locked in an implicit bargain to tolerate the other person’s bad behavior because they’re tolerating yours, and neither of you wants to be alone. On the surface, it seems like “compromising in relationships because that’s what people do,” but the reality is that resentments build up, and both parties become the other person’s emotional hostage against having to face and deal with their own bullshit

A healthy and happy relationship requires two healthy and happy individuals. Keyword here: “individuals.” That means two people with their own identities, their own interests and perspectives, and things they do by themselves, on their own time. Don’t try to change them. This is the person you chose. They were good enough to marry so don’t expect them to change now.Don’t ever give up who you are for the person you’re with. It will only backfire and make you both miserable. Have the courage to be who you are, and most importantly, let your partner be who they are. Those are the two people who fell in love with each other in the first place


There is no 50/50 in housecleaning, child rearing, vacation planning, dishwasher emptying, gift buying, dinner making, money making, etc. The sooner everyone accepts that, the happier everyone is. We all have things we like to do and hate to do; we all have things we are good at and not so good at. TALK to your partner about those things when it comes to dividing and conquering all the crap that has to get done in life.

Everyone has an image in their mind of how a relationship should work. Both people share responsibilities. Both people manage to finely balance their time together with the time for themselves. Both pursue engaging and invigorating interests on their own and then share the benefits together. Both take turns cleaning the toilet and blowing each other and cooking gourmet lasagna for the extended family at Thanksgiving

Then there’s how relationships actually work.

Messy. Stressful. Miscommunication flying everywhere so that both of you feel as though you’re in a perpetual state of talking to a wall.

The fact is relationships are imperfect, messy affairs. And it’s for the simple reason that they’re comprised of imperfect, messy people — people who want different things at different times in different ways and oh, they forgot to tell you? Well, maybe if you had been listening, ***.

PERSONAL: WHAT MAKE RELATIONSHIP REALLY WORK

Love is a funny thing. In ancient times, people genuinely considered love a sickness. Parents warned their children against it, and adults quickly arranged marriages before their children were old enough to do something dumb in the name of their emotions.

That’s because love, while making us feel all giddy and high as if we had just snorted a shoebox full of cocaine, makes us highly irrational. That is what chemistry does for us.. It’s nature’s way of tricking us into doing insane and irrational things to procreate with another person — probably because if we stopped to think about the repercussions of having kids, and being with the same person forever and ever, no one would ever do it. As Robin Williams used to joke, “God gave man a brain and a penis and only enough blood to operate one at a time.”

Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other’s faults long enough to get some babymaking done. It generally only lasts for a few  months at most. That dizzying high you get staring into your lover’s eyes as if they are the stars that make up the heavens — yeah, that mostly goes away. It does for everybody. So, once it’s gone, you need to know that you’ve buckled yourself down with a human being you genuinely respect and enjoy being with, otherwise things are going to get rocky.

True love — that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy — is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances. It’s a commitment to a person who you understand isn’t going to always make you happy — nor should they! — and a person who will need to rely on you at times, just as you will rely on them.

That form of love is much harder. Primarily because it often doesn’t feel very good. It’s unglamorous. It’s lots of early morning doctor’s visits. It’s cleaning up bodily fluids you’d rather not be cleaning up. It’s dealing with another person’s insecurities and fears and ideas, even when you don’t want to.

But this form of love is also far more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the end of the day, it brings true happiness, not just another series of highs.Happily Ever After doesn’t exist. Every day you wake up and decide to love your partner and your life – the good, the bad and the ugly. Some days it’s a struggle and some days you feel like the luckiest person in the world Many people never learn how to breach this deep, unconditional love. Many people are instead addicted to the ups and downs of romantic love. They are in it for the feels, so to speak. And when the feels run out, so do they.

When you commit to someone, you don’t actually know who you’re committing to. You know who they are today, but you have no idea who this person is going to be in five years, ten years, and so on. You have to be prepared for the unexpected, and truly ask yourself if you admire this person regardless of the superficial (or not-so-superficial) details, because I promise almost all of them at some point are going to either change or go away.

It’s important to always realize you have a choice. The love you seek is obtainable only if you are patient enough to wait for it and courageous enough to move on. Remember the first time you rode your bike? You fell off didn’t you? And I bet you got right back on and eventually you just kept going. It’s okay to get hurt, the bruises will only remind you of how far you’ve come.

I began finding comfort in being alone. I no longer had a desire to “have” someone in my life to keep me occupied, to love me, or to bring me happiness. I was going places whenever I wanted to, doing things however I wanted to and creating memories in the process. In essence, I was creating my own happiness without someone else. In doing so, I’ve been able to identify what i want in a woman and have made certain that I’ll never settle for anything less than what I truly deserve and desire. Mind you, there might not be a single person in this world who wants a family more than I do. I’m just not willing to settle in order to have that. I believe that God and patience will bring me everything I’ve dreamed of and more.

I have a totally different perspective on relationships today than I did even few years ago. See, I think of relationships with the same lens as I do my career. If I am going to invest my time into something, it’s because I know I am getting the same investment back in return. Why would you put time and effort into something that doesn’t put the same time and effort into you? And then be naive enough to believe it will bring you happiness? Men and women wake up everyday and go to work to be successful. Most have this obsession with making more and more money. Imagine they felt the same way about your feelings and happiness? Giving more and more effort each day because it’ll bring them closer to that next step. Why shouldn’t they? Money doesn’t bring happiness, hell I would rather be broke and in love than rich and miserable.

Being older, I am very selective with whom I choose to offer my time and heart to. People always ask me why I’m single; I’ve chosen to be. I don’t look for perfection, and definitely don’t need just a pretty face. I’m an extremely confident man and I’ve never needed a pretty woman on my arm to feel secure, instead I’m attracted to the qualities of a woman; her vision for her future and the kindness of her soul. That’s what I look forward to falling in love with and that’s what I build my future for. I’ll be patient until the day I find it …. and when I do, I’ll show her a love she’s never experienced before; a love that will never hurt and never quit.

I am not a serial dater. So many woman I have talked to have gone on so many dates and never find someone they want to be with....even if that guy is a nice guy....there will always be a but......something wrong.....something missing. You will have something I lack and I will have something you lack. I usually will meet someone who I feel want me to be with them. Someone who want me in their life. If you don't show interest in me, I won't show interest in you. I don't believe in chemistry. I believe love takes time to grow.

How do I know if I want to meet you? By your action...but also by talking to you. Yes talking to you. I want to be able to talk to my parnter about anything. If something bothers you in the relationship, you must be willing to say it. Saying it builds trust and trust builds intimacy. It may hurt, but you still need to do it. No one else can fix your relationship for you. Nor should anyone else. Just as causing pain to your muscles allows them to grow back stronger, often introducing some pain into your relationship through vulnerability is the only way to make the relationship stronger.

Behind respect, trust was the most commonly mentioned trait for a healthy relationship. Most people mentioned it in the context of jealousy and fidelity — trust your partner to go off on their own, don’t get insecure or angry if you see them talking with someone else, etc.

But trust goes much deeper than that. Because when you’re really talking about the long-haul, you start to get into some serious life-or-death ***. If you ended up with cancer tomorrow, would you trust your partner to stick with you and take care of you? Would you trust your partner to care for your child for a week by themselves? Do you trust them to handle your money or make sound decisions under pressure? Do you trust them to not turn on you or blame you when you make mistakes?

These are hard things to do. And they’re even harder to think about early on in a relationship. Trust at the beginning of a relationship is easy. It’s like, “Oh, I forgot my phone at her apartment, I trust her not to sell it and buy crack with the money… I think.”But the deeper the commitment, the more intertwined your lives become, and the more you will have to trust your partner to act in your interest in your absence.

The key to fostering and maintaining trust in the relationship is for both partners to be completely transparent and vulnerable:Make promises and then stick to them. The only way to truly rebuild trust after it’s been broken is through a proven track record over time. You cannot build that track record until you own up to previous mistakes and set about correcting them.Trust is like a china plate. If you drop it and it breaks, you can put it back together with a lot of work and care. If you drop it and break it a second time, it will split into twice as many pieces and it will require far more time and care to put back together again. But drop and break it enough times, and it will shatter into so many pieces that you will never be able to put it back together again, no matter what you 


I was married before....and I got divorced. This is what i learned from that experience: You are absolutely not going to be absolutely gaga over each other every single day for the rest of your lives, and all this ‘happily ever after’ bullshit is just setting people up for failure. They go into relationships with these unrealistic expectations. Then, the instant they realize they aren’t ‘gaga’ anymore, they think the relationship is broken and over, and they need to get out. No! There will be days, or weeks, or maybe even longer, when you aren’t all mushy-gushy in-love. You’re even going to wake up some morning and think, “Ugh, you’re still here….” That’s normal! And more importantly, sticking it out is totally worth it, because that, too, will change. In a day, or a week, or maybe even longer, you’ll look at that person and a giant wave of love will inundate you, and you’ll love them so much you think your heart can’t possibly hold it all and is going to burst. Because a love that’s alive is also constantly evolving. It expands and contracts and mellows and deepens. It’s not going to be the way it used to be, or the way it will be, and it shouldn’t be. I think if more couples understood that, they’d be less inclined to panic and rush to break up or divorce

I think the most important thing that I have learned in those years is that the love you feel for each other is constantly changing. Sometimes you feel a deep love and satisfaction, other times you want nothing to do with your spouse; sometimes you laugh together, sometimes you’re screaming at each other. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, ups and downs all the time, but as you stay together long enough the downs become less severe and the ups are more loving and contented. So even if you feel like you could never love your partner any more, that can change, if you give it a chance. I think people give up too soon. You need to be the kind of person that you want your spouse to be. When you do that it makes a world of difference

Relationships exist as waves, people need to learn how to ride them. like the ocean, there are constant waves of emotion going on within a relationship, ups and downs — some waves last for hours, some last for months or even years. The key is understanding that few of those waves have anything to do with the quality of the relationship — people lose jobs, family members die, couples relocate, switch careers, make a lot of money, lose a lot of money. Your job as a committed partner is to simply ride the waves with the person you love, regardless of where they go. Because ultimately, none of these waves last. And you simply end up with each other.

You can work through anything as long as you are not destroying yourself or each other. That means emotionally, physically, financially or spiritually. Make nothing off limits to discuss. Never shame or mock each other for the things you do that make you happy. Write down why you fell in love and read it every year on your anniversary (or more often). Write love letters to each other often. Make each other first. When kids arrive, it will be easy to fall into a frenzy of making them the only focus of your life…do not forget the love that produced them. You must keep that love alive and strong to feed them love. Spouse comes first. Each of you will continue to grow. Bring the other one with you. Be the one that welcomes that growth. Don’t think that the other one will hold the relationship together. Both of you should assume it’s up to you so that you are both working on it. Be passionate about cleaning house, preparing meals and taking care of your home. This is required of everyone daily, make it fun and happy and do it together. Do not complain about your partner to anyone. Love them for who they are. Make love even when you are not in the mood. Trust each other. Give each other the benefit of the doubt always. Be transparent. Have nothing to hide. Be proud of each other. Have a life outside of each other, but share it through conversation. Pamper and adore each other. Go to counselling now before you need it so that you are both open to working on the relationship together. Disagree with respect to each other’s feelings. Be open to change and accepting of differences

ARTICLE: Before the World Wide Web — which turned 30 this week — we wasted (and enjoyed) time in so many other ways By Mary Schmich

Have a seat, little children, and let me tell you about a time long ago when life was very strange and hard but also oddly beautiful.

I’m talking about 1989.

No, that’s not when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

It was in that distant time, 30 years ago this week, kids, that a man invented the World Wide Web and changed, well, everything.

Imagine. No Google, no Facebook, no Amazon. No email, no tweeting, no streaming. No Skyping, no Snapchat, no Airbnb. No online trolls.

Imagine a world in which it was possible to travel and know little about what was going on back home. In which it was possible to go many hours without hearing directly from the president. In which you didn’t feel pressure to broadcast your life to the world if only because you had no way to do it.

Such was life before the World Wide Web.

How did we communicate back then? How did we fill our time? Sometimes it’s hard to remember.

We stayed in touch through letters. We wrote them by hand or typed them on typewriters. We put the letters in the mailbox and we waited — days or weeks or months — for a reply.

In the world before the web, we spent a lot of time waiting.

In that slow pre-web world, phones were made for talking and we talked on the phone for hours. We bought long phone cords so we could move around with the part of the phone called a receiver.

We read books, meaning something with paper pages that was obtained at a bookstore or the library.

We ordered nothing online because there was no online. Almost nothing was delivered to our doors, except the phone book and the printed newspaper.

In the evenings in that web-free age, we relied on network TV news shows to learn, in brief, what had happened in the world that day. Then we watched whatever show the networks decided we’d watch, at precisely the time they decided we’d watch it.

Would we have watched that much “Falcon Crest” if there had been a Netflix? Such are the existential questions we ponder, children, when we think of life before the web.

We made reservations for hotels and flights over the phone.

We kept appointments on paper calendars.

We took our photos to a shop to be developed. As I said, we spent a lot of time waiting.

And maps. We learned how to read them, how to fold them. We kept them in the car. We set off on trips knowing we might get lost.

We kept track of people in our address books. We lost track of many. Letters came back marked “No longer at this address.” Distant relations, high school boyfriends, co-workers faded into memory, to be resurrected only decades later by Facebook.

Without Pandora and Spotify and iTunes we listened to music on the radio or the stereo.

In 1989, if we wanted to watch a movie at home, we could — but only if we went to one of those new places called Blockbuster, rented one of those VHS tapes and brought it home to play in the VCR.

We got our celebrity gossip the old-fashioned way, from magazines at the grocery store checkout.

And when we had a weird rash or an ache that wouldn’t quit? We fretted about it, guessed about it, consulted a friend who knew next to nothing. There was no Dr. Google to help us self-diagnose.

I could go on, children, but the web has shortened our attention spans. So let me conclude with this:

We use our time differently than we did 30 years ago. The web has saved us time and sucked it from us.

We spend less time now booking a flight and balancing our checking accounts. We spend far more posting on Facebook, answering emails and arguing on comment boards. We are more engaged with the world and more overwhelmed by it.

Were we less anxious before the web arrived to connect us to everyone and everything all the time? Maybe. Or maybe just differently anxious.

The truth is, we’re still trying to figure out how these 30 years have shaped and reshaped us.

But this much is for sure: Thirty years from now, you’ll think back on this era and try to explain to a new crop of kids that even though 2019 seems primitive to them, it wasn’t so bad.