Shrink-o-Matic

Ever see one of those tiny ads on the sidebar of your Facebook page or on any number of relationship-oriented website that promises you the perrrfect relationship, overnight? It reads something like: "Is you lover pulling away from you? Is he/she unable to commit? Do you struggle with clear communication with your partner? Read our quick guide to learn how to bring him closer and have your dream relationship NOW!" Alas, the lovelorn and the eternally hopeful fall prey to these types of miraculous make-overs all the time. Sadly, these love miracles are actually more like a love mirage. Why? Let's take a closer look at what these ads offer:

* You can fix your relationship today!
* Find out exactly what your lover wants from you!
* Communicate better so that you'll never have misunderstandings between you and a lover again!
* Raise your self-esteem overnight and draw your lover closer immediately!
* Get him/her to commit NOW!

Wow. Promises, promises. If true, these God-sent gems can save lives and put to shame any number of professionals who spend months helping people overcome a lifetime of individual and interpersonal issues. So what magical potions do these special folks possess to be able to make such miraculous claims? What secret voodoo tricks do they practice? How curious ARE you to find out for yourself? For the price of one E-mail address (and endless spam mail), you can get all the answers that you seek! Yes, dear reader...you can have the relationship of your dreams! Get the guy/girl to commit to you, today! Overcome all your issues...NOW!

These claims are as good as those annoying Yahoo E-mail ads that claim you can erase your wrinkles overnight. Riiight.

Let's be real. Miracles don't happen overnight. And if you have two people in a relationship, and one or both have some serious issues to deal with, you have a long way to go, baby!

So what's a hopeful romantic to do?

Carolyn Hax, Style columnist for the Washington Post, recently published a checklist for all you girls (and boys) out there who wonder if your lover is "The ONE". Frankly, after reading the list, I felt so depressed that I decided I might want to be single forever. In fact, I think 99.9999% of the world would be single, as they'd come up short to "the One" list (below) created by Ms. Hax. But reality bitch-slap from the Washington Post aside, Ms. Hax's article offers some good pointers on what to look for in a partner to see if you two are, at least, compatible. Take the points with a grain of salt, dear readers, because no one..and I mean, NO ONE, is this perfect. I warn you, no matter if you think you're with Mr. or Ms. Perfect...your lover will fall short! Now, read it and weep:

How do I know if someone is "the one"?

(1) If you're asking me, he's not it. You're not marveling at your luck in finding this guy. He deserves that. You do, too. End of discussion? Maybe. However, some people feel lucky just to have someone rich, or pretty, or breathing, so it's important to calibrate your concept of luck.
(2) Do you love, not just like, each other?
(3) Do you like, not just love, each other?
(4) Do you talk to each other easily? Sit in silence easily?
(5) Are you both past the point of comparing yourselves with or seeking approval from your parents? Peers?
(6) Do friends and family approve? (Trick question.) Do you respect their opinions? Should you?
(7) Should you respect your opinions? Can you spot abuse and control? Have you outgrown any need to delude yourself, and can you admit when you're being shallow, stubborn, immature? When you're score-keeping, holding grudges, shifting blame, undermining, told-you-so-ing, abusing substances or otherwise making suspect decisions?
(8) Are there no major objections, recurring arguments, unhealed emotional wounds between you? Do you two handle conflict well enough not to fear it? Are you free to be yourselves, where others seem to walk on eggshells?
And finally: (9) Do you understand that you can get all of this "right," and get everything else "right," and be raised by parents who got this "right," and still have things go wrong? That cosmically, practically and mathematically, the whole concept of "the one" is ludicrous? This is sounding like an argument for serial monogamy. But operating from a fear of missteps is itself a misstep. Have the guts to accept life without guarantees, and to let good fortune speak for itself. Oh, and if you're wondering where sex is, it's covered by 1-9.

Well, there goes MY perfect relationship!

There must be a case of "voluntary deafness" going around these days. Maybe it's a bug, a virus, or maybe it's just convenient. But I've noticed a trend of people not listening to or hearing what you have to say: "I don't remember that," they respond blankly, as though it's the first time they've heard you mention a certain point, even if you know for a fact that you've repeated yourself 10 other times and six ways from Sunday. "I remember the damned conversation," you might think to yourself in disbelief, "so why don't YOU?"

People may have always had a case of convenient deafness. What else would explain human history as we know it (divorces, shady politics, wars...)? Yet, I'd personally like to believe that there once existed a world where listening skills were a sign of class, dignity, and respect for self and others. In today's society, however, truly listening to one another has given way to yelling louder and louder in order to be heard. And even then, there are no guarantees that you'll be heard. People are no longer interested in listening. Communication is a "skill" nowadays, not a normal expectation we can have of an educated, sane adult (or perhaps sanity is the issue here? Hmm.) People just don't listen to one another and so much miscommunication occurs as a result...not only on a one-on-one, interpersonal level, but on a global level. Lately, when I talk to certain people who seem to be conveniently "deaf" to certain points I'm making, I feel like I'm channeling that Verizon guy when I hear myself say, "Can you hear me now?" I'm not talking about cell phone reception here, either.

Alejandro González Iñárritu based an entire Oscar-winning film, Babel, on this very concept. I finally watched the film last night for the first time, and the frustration that I felt at the ignorant decisions the characters made because of their inability to listen/hear one another nearly matched my own frustration from earlier that evening, when having a (repetitive) conversation with a person in my life who did not want to hear me. Grrrr.

What happens when you don't feel heard? What do you do? How do you react? Do you shut down? Do you yell, in order to feel heard or to get the attention/respect you think you deserve? Or do you let your feet do the talking...by walking away, leaving a job, a relationship, or a person behind, out of the sheer frustration and annoyance, if not downright anger, of feeling unheard? I've done all of the above and the relief I've felt in leaving the "conveniently deaf" people in my life behind has not been a decision I've regretted yet. And in turning my back and walking out the proverbial door of someone's life, I've heard the little voice in my head yell over my shoulder, "Can you hear me NOW?!"

I'm sitting here, wondering...about life. Yea, well, we all do it, especially when it's the middle of the work day and it's taking a heck of a long time for Friday to roll around. But in all seriousness, I'm pondering the idea of human nature, the inherent curiosity we all have about life and its numerous options, and how the curiosity that we all nurture has created civilizations, inventions, technologies, and the exploration of not only Earth, but great galaxies, far, far away. Curiosity: not a bad thing.

And yet, I think about how this very curiosity affects our day-to-day lives and I do a mental double-take. The accessibility of the globe via the internet and cell phones (and the internet on our cell phones) brings the world to us; we no longer have to go in search of "it". Hence, our curiosity and our need for information, knowledge, a search for self either via online streaming seminars, webisodes, or even via googlebation...are all endlessly satiated while simultaneously creating a need for more, more, and more. Curiosity, one finds, feeds on itself and seems to require an enormous amount of energy and resources that we constantly seek, in order to feed the growing "monster" within us. Hmm. Curiosity: is it a good thing?

Then how does this translate into our daily, interpersonal lives? For one, people no longer meet in person as often to have a heart-to-heart talk: they pick up the cell phone, text, or even chat online. Individuals self-entertain by playing video/online games, ordering dinner on the internet (which gets delivered to your door, thereby avoiding the whole in-person hassle), and even stream movies online, instead of heading to the local Cineplex. Even better than that is that people don't even go out to find dates anymore! They join oodles of bright, shiny new online dating sites to meet "the One". And when they find someone, they resort to video-cams, conference calling, online chatting, or the telephone...instead of heading to the closest coffee shop because, hey...the internet makes life so much easier when you can live your life sitting in front of the computer in your p.j.'s., right? So where did the innate curiosity, the thirst for exploration, and the need for human contact disappear to?

The worst part of it is the fact that in spite of ALL that is available to us, at our very fingertips, people in this modern day of "you can have it ALL" are at their most depressed, anxious, unfulfilled, fearful, and unhappy, therefore self-medicating through illegal drugs, alcohol, prescription pills, meaningless/casual sex, and psychotropics. Then it makes one wonder: is curiosity and its by-products really that good a thing?

What about relationships? Divorce rates continue to climb, people continue to be dissatisfied in relationships, they still cheat (and now even more often, too, given the accessibility of partners-in-crime via online means), families are breaking up, intimate relationships appear to be more dysfunctional than ever, people don't even talk/write in full sentences anymore (tx to txt tlk), and most folks are still single, unhappy, moaning and groaning about it...and none of the innovations, technologies, or self-help methods seem to help anyone yet.

Knowing all of this, and experiencing it first hand even...why do so many of us experience a feeling of anhedonia in our day to day living? Why is it that when we do get what we want, or be with who we think we want, we still ponder the circular question(s), "Is this enough? Am I happy? Is this what I really want? Is there something better out there for me...?" Isn't that the inherent curiosity of our species biting us in the ass? Doesn't this type of over-analysis land us in a place of "there's more for me out there," therefore creating dissatisfaction (based on self-deluding expectations, a belief in the next best thing, the "never enough," or greener pastures) and leading to depression, boredom, intimacy issues, communication breakdown, break ups, and the never-ending search for something better? Are we all looking for that magical moment when we meet "the One" and run towards each other in green fields, embrace, move to the castle, and what? Live "happily ever after"? How many of us still think that's what love looks like (yea, me TOO! But I'm working on this...).

What are we all looking for, anyway?

Why do we look outside of ourselves for self-fulfillment instead of taking a peek inside of us and learning to appreciate what we do have, and not always focusing on what we think is always lacking, missing, or absent? Maybe nothing IS missing. Maybe it's something missing inside of US, and we just can't bear to look at it, so the constant search for the unnameable and the unexplainable drives away the fear of really accepting me, you, us, and the reality that hey, maybe this is IT. Can it be that simple?

I am certainly guilty of much of the above. Nonetheless, on a day like today...it makes even me - the eternal curious child - wonder...what am I looking for all this time, anyway?

I must admit...fairy tales did not do us any good. In my case, my Prince Charming really turned out to be a Princess-in-the-Making, my dreams of a big wedding with a pouffy dress now seems unnecessary (and outrageously expensive!), and the happily ever after? Well, it's not looking quite like what I imagined, but accepting what I do have is turning out to be an adventure all on its own, with unexpected twists, turns, and perhaps a surprise (happy?) ending. So is it better to enjoy the romance of reality, or do we all still long for our "castle in the sky" and hope to be rescued by...well, whomever we think ought to rescue us (God forbid, we should rescue ourselves!)?

All of this does make me wonder....

But then again, I suppose I'm just curious that way.