If you haven't read my previous post "What Do You Do When You Don't Know How to Date"... well it's actually not a problem at all because it was awful to begin with. If you are so inclined you can take a quick look at it, but I can sum up the train-wreck that was that post faster than you can read it.

Milton is driving a stolen convertible down the highway with the radio on full volume at 4 AM, after a series of choices which had led him to wish for an escape.

Throughout time the definition of soulmates has become a likeness to fairy-tales, Prince Charming and happy ever afters. The deeply spiritual and often turbulent connection between soulmates has been reduced to ones marital partner, boyfriend or girlfriend- when in fact, the two relationships aren't one and the same. A soulmate isn't the person you married just because, well... you're married to them. Not all soulmates are romantic partnerships, and people can certainly have more than one. It's often a case where two soulmates struggle to have a successful relationship due to the karmic debt they share and the pain they've caused each other during their spiritual journeys. It's certainly not all doom and gloom, but not always the romantic fantasy that is sold to us in movies.

Oftentimes, the media doesn't capture all the complexities of coming out. Shows like Glee, and books like Simon and the Homosapien's Agenda tend to paint coming out as a very linear and restrictive process.

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of caring about the relationships in your life. There is a misconception that those connections that the most important to us must withstand all challenges while the others who are not as integral to our well being might not matter that much. Both of these statements discard the complexities of relationships and our basic needs as well.

Is your relationship suffering from the evils of an overly jealous partner or spouse? Extreme jealousy can make life hell, not just for you, but for your partner. It can ruin relationships and end marriages. Here is how you should deal with it.

If you are a self-motivator, a sports fan, or simply a Sylvester Stallone fan, then chances are that you've heard Rocky Balboa's speech that he gives his son in the 2006 film. (Need a refresher? Check out the movie scene above. A written transcript of the speech can be found here.) A motivational gem, it has helped carry me through everything from sporting competitions to traumatic life events. While sports and difficult life experiences go hand in hand with the theme of the speech, it doesn't take much to see how it can apply to another aspect of life: Dating. Here is why parts of this speech really stood out to me in my dating days and why it can be useful for you too.

American Sign Language (ASL) has steadily gained more exposure through television, movies and social media. It’s estimated that around a million people use ASL as their primary language.

Romance is hard no matter how old you are, but high schoolers might just have the most difficult time with it of all. After all, the whole point of high school (besides, I guess, academics) is for adolescents to learn how to participate in the social world. At my high school, however, there was no class on how to date and make friends with other people. Instead, I had to learn everything through trial and error.

I don’t think it’s a secret that the MOGAI community is complicated, or that there are a lot of misconceptions about the many, many identities encompassed within that umbrella. From contention around the term "queer," to questions about what the “A” in "LGBTQIA+" stands for, there’s a lot to learn and remember and unpack—and a lot of misinformation to contend with. Moreover, when dealing with such a large community, it’s inevitable that you encounter differences of perspective and opinion, which unfortunately can turn heated.

There has long been contentious and problematic language surrounding the LGBTQIA+ community. Even the aforementioned acronym can be controversial, as our understanding of non-heterosexual, non-cis/non-binary, and generally non-normative identities expand and more letters are needed to encompass the whole spectrum. One word often used for such an umbrella term is “queer,” but this isn’t universally accepted, either.

Peter and Fred boarded a plane six days after I arrived in Beijing. I was busying myself snapping photos at every turn, recording expenses and conversations, for the Travel feature. The sunlight slanted across my frequent haunt, the Palace Museum, in the early mornings of a beautiful spring. I satisfied my homesickness for Washington, D.C. by wandering through this temple to the arts. For the sake of the article, I’d also visited the typical tourist destinations of China, and was now preparing to tour various Buddhist temples in and around the city. I set out for Biyun Si, the Temple of the Azure Clouds. I never got to any temple beyond it.

Is your relationship suffering from the evils of an overly jealous partner or spouse? Extreme jealousy can make life hell, not just for you, but for your partner. It can ruin relationships and end marriages. Here is how you should deal with it.

2019 has been an extrememly tough year for me. It started out at the tail end of 2018, I was in an emotionally and vulnerable place in my life. There were so many things going on that did not seem fair, so when I met this older guy, I thought this was it, my life was finally going to turn around. As 2019 approached, we became extremely close to one another. Everything seemed to be going great, until the abuse crept in.

My partner and I have been married for 11 years. We were married at Home Affairs, in a less than elegant setting, early on a summer's morning. We were young. We were in love. We were ready to face the world together. 

11/4/2019

Are you ready to leave your shell? I talked about giving yourself time to learn about you in "Surviving The Art of Cheating". When you are getting over a breakup, especially one that involved cheating, you have to take all the time you need to heal. The mind and heart battle is hard, and it's grueling. You can’t rush it or you will end up back in the same place of blaming and trying to go back to the cheater. There is no race. You will know you’re ready to break out of your shell and face the world when you can evaluate your past relationship with honesty and not fall apart at the mention of the cheater’s name.

She stared at the screen for a good few minutes before lifting her heavy hands and beginning to type. Her mind was cluttered, and she was numb.

With her every step, the dry leaves crunched beneath her boots. Before she’d met him, her eyes would be glued to the ground, scanning for a red leaf among the brown ones. It was some kind of game to her, almost like finding a needle in a haystack. Now, though, she took on a different task; one just as difficult.


You don’t realize how strong you really are until your heart is broken and you go through the process of making yourself feel whole again. It takes time, sometimes a long time, to heal a broken heart, but it’s not a race you need to win - take the time you need to know who you really are. We sometimes forget that in a relationship you give part of yourself to make compromises. Remember that when it's over you can take that back. Take ownership and to learn what YOU want, not anybody else. 
Dating is not something you should rush into, especially if you want it to turn into something serious. You have to take your time to get to know people as friends first. A relationship without friendship will never be a lasting relationship. When you date someone, don't look at them as a potential love interest, but as a person you just enjoy going out with, with no sex involved. You should get to know the person first, and that takes times. I don’t mean just the good act that people put on, but the real stuff they hide deep inside because it may not be so nice to face. It's up to you to decide if that is something you can and are willing to deal with. It takes a honest discussion with yourself. The more you date, the more you get to see not only what you’re looking for, but also what you don’t want from a person. Be patient. Don’t get serious too fast and throw yourself headlong into a situation just because all your friends have somebody. You are still fragile in your heart, so don’t go on a date and think you’re in love just because someone said all the right things on that first date. The second date you might see a totally different person that you don’t like at all. When you feel like you are ready to date, do it with another couple. This way, you have someone to make you feel a little less nervous and you have a second set of eyes and ears on the person you are dating. If possible, even if it may sounds strange, don’t just date one person - remember these are supposed to be casual, amicable dates, not romantic dates with no 'hidden agenda'. Romance shouldn’t be in your thought process for a long while. If you think it's a 'love at first sight' kind of situation, what you need to do is go back home and stay put until that feeling goes away. Sure enough, there are rare occasions when you meet someone and both of you immediately know that love is in the air, but since you just got over a bad experience, I wouldn’t trust my judgement. Again, take your time, have some fun and be true to yourself. You want to feel whole, and if you think that sleeping with somebody right away is going to fix you, then you’re wrong. You will only hate yourself the next day, don’t do it. This is another situation where the intervention, the interference if you will, of another couple could help you avoid making that big mistake. The more you go out and the more people you meet, the more you can and will trust yourself. There’s nothing worse than having your heart and mind fighting, and that happens once you get into a relationship. Don’t forget all you’ve been through to get to this point. Another thing you need to steer clear of at all costs is comparing people to your ex. That’s a big no. You should never compare and contrast people, and if you do then you aren’t ready to date. You still have some issues that haven’t been resolved. You have to be able to look at each person individually, and not judge that person based on your past experiences. Everyone has their own qualities and you need to accept them based on what you think will contribute to your happiness, regardless of what your relationships were like in the past. You want to be yourself, not who you think that person wants. You, and only you, know who you are, so don’t put on any act because eventually it will be exposed. Have some fun dating, and enjoy just being able to breathe some fresh air, because now you are free.

The next blog will be about the struggle between heart and mind when a relationship ends.






This article does not apply to everyone, because there have always been those whose main focus is the sex act, even from childhood. This story is about the lost art of boy meets girl and romance follows without complication. When I was in the fourth grade in elementary school a boy in my class wrote on a piece of paper, balled it up and threw it on the desk of the girl sitting next to me. When she opened it the note asked? “I love you do you love me?" She replied, then balled up the paper and asked me to send it back. Throughout the day this “couple” had several occasions where they passed notes like this.

I’ve been crying ever since I woke up this morning and I can’t stop asking myself “Why?” I also can’t stop asking myself, “Who?” or “What?” I’ve been trying to just move along in my day, but I am finding it impossible. I am losing myself, slowly, into the depths of something I cannot understand. And nobody will explain it to me, no matter how much I plead. And now it’s come down to the moment that I have to be honest with myself. And everybody else if there’s ever going to be closure to this sad state in the world. The thing about it is, I haven’t been honest throughout this entire book. But I’m going to be honest now. Because no matter how hard I try, I just can’t see things any other way. I see it in my head, no matter how hard I try to convince myself it isn’t real. And no matter how hard others out there try to beat me down to silence. I’m going to do what they’ve been promoting me to do all along. I’m going to speak my truth and be honest, as I see it from my point of view. From the picture in my head.

If you are an incarnated female in this time, you have experienced suppression in some form, whether you are conscious of it or not. The suppression and misuse of feminine energy and her sexual creative force were evident to me not only as a young girl but throughout my adult life.

To the newly divorced woman, vacation and holiday season can be especially difficult. With all the focus around family, being together, love and happiness, it sometimes feels as if the world is literally celebrating around your loss. While vacation is something that we are expected to look forward to, experiencing it on your own again takes some getting used to. It can be lonely, and hard to find things to do. BUT, we can get through it. And how do I know that? Because we always do.

Family isn't always blood. Sometimes it's just someone, a friend who you can just trust more than anyone else, and is always there for you when you really need them to be. This is something I have learned over the past year, and it's made me value who is really in my life and who I can rely on for anything.

How can your life be ruined even before you started? Maybe not ruined, but certainly damaged. Such a damaged human being from the start. I always felt disconnected from every person, but most of all, family. I would be the one who was a goody-goody, while my sisters rebelled. They always treated me like the annoying youngest sister. The only one who wouldn't go out. The one always upset. Always jealous and longing for love and attention.

I remember back as far as four and a half years old. Vivid memories of living in a basement apartment in North Denver, my Mom being on ADC and the County Nurse coming to visit and bringing a box filled with staples: rice, cheese, powdered eggs, milk, etc. I can still see the box on top of the table, way above my head. I can still feel the sensation of climbing up on the chair to look at all the goods being pulled from the box.

Every once in a while teenagers get into a vicious cycle during which we attempt to erase all forms of “bad energy” from our lives and unfortunately lose precious relationships we only end up regretting in the near future, then make friends which would impact us negatively and bring us back to the beginning of the cycle.

“Oh my goodness! I’m really gonna miss it here.” Lori says surrounded by her three closest friends.

If you are unsure how to make friends in college, I'm going to give you 11 easy steps to making friends. I know that it’s hard making friends at college even when you are a freshman.

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of caring about the relationships in your life. There is a misconception that those connections that the most important to us must withstand all challenges while the others who are not as integral to our well being might not matter that much. Both of these statements discard the complexities of relationships and our basic needs as well.

Like many people you’ve probably heard phrases such as ‘never give up!’ Truly a powerful phrase, although you can only keep tackling the same situations with the same approach until it comes back to bite you in the butt. This in turn becomes stressful and very hard to keep up with especially if it’s scolding your kids every time they don’t finish their chores. Why does this happen? Ultimately, when situations arise that aren’t ideal we tend to emphasize things in a way that takes power away. I have witnessed this myself with how people talk to each other expecting things to be ‘done’ correctly. This color of seeing something as ‘wrong’ and fighting to fix it creates two opposing sides. With two opposing sides the reaction is to defend yourself and fight back because it’s human nature! Of course a child will fight back, they might even cut deep with their words which perpetuates this duel further. Wouldn’t it be swell if there was a way to skip that stress and extra fight just to make sure your child not only gets their chores done, but also learns mutual respect?

The older I get the more I see people’s true colors, I’m not even sure if a truly “good” person even exists at all. Sometimes it really affects me. I want to see the good in everyone and I can, but then as time goes on the not so good surfaces and you are left to wonder if the “good” is good enough?! So you weigh things out and try to explain why a person might be this way or that.. what/who helped create these “bad” parts? Can you help them? Can you support them? Take their abuse? Love them anyway???

Oftentimes, the media doesn't capture all the complexities of coming out. Shows like Glee, and books like Simon and the Homosapien's Agenda tend to paint coming out as a very linear and restrictive process.

Commonly, bisexuality is defined as attraction to both men and women. For this reason, some people would argue that bisexuality is transphobic and cissexist – by specifying attraction to men and women, you exclude non-binary people. (Joyner 2016; Bailou 2015; galiagodel 2018; Collins 2017) This, like many accusations against bisexuality, doesn’t show the whole picture.

How often have you asked anyone how did they know they were straight or cisgender? I know I never have. Being straight is not something we question or have to come to terms with. From a young age, we are exposed to heterosexual relationships, binary gender roles and we grow up expecting to be attracted to people that have been assigned the opposite gender to us.

With the approaching holiday season, everyone is riddled with the task of getting the perfect present for their better half. Whether you’re a recent prey of the cuffing season or in a long, happy relationship, the gift hunt never becomes easier. After all, you have to manage to squeeze in all your love in a material object.

Flowers are the synonyms of love, beauty, and elegance that people reserve for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, etc. The flowers are chosen as gifts for their quality to express feelings and emotions in thoughtful ways. Whether you have to wow someone, admire their deeds or ask for an apology, no other gift does it better than flowers.

Not only being smitten with someone makes you feel happy, but it also makes you feel powerful. Alas no, none of you is going to turn into any Marvel hero, but many of you still feel empowered. The truth is, even if you all think and behave differently in general, you all show similar attitudes when it comes time to interacting with that someone that you like. Lets check this out:

Tripping, tumbling goes my heart as I stare at the world in front of me. The flicker from the flame of the the torch making the shadows dance and part of me wishes to dance along with them. The night was dark and deep, the air, crisp and cold. It was the type of night you would be wise to stay inside, but your heart would long to be free. To be in the embrace of the fresh air outside.

I’ll never forget Ms. Fitzpatrick’s facial expression when Romance asked her:

She was about to close the drawer when she saw it. A simple long-sleeved shirt that she had bought at one of those Big Box stores. It was made of thick cotton and was one of her favorite shirts to wear when the air turned cool and nippy. She remembered the day she had bought it. She had traveled up to Sam's Club with her family. The day had been warm and mild when she left her house and she had dressed for the weather, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Although the store was only an hour away, the weather was completely different. It was at least ten degrees colder, cloudy and blustery. She had been freezing and had bought the shirt in order to stay warm.

Throughout time the definition of soulmates has become a likeness to fairy-tales, Prince Charming and happy ever afters. The deeply spiritual and often turbulent connection between soulmates has been reduced to ones marital partner, boyfriend or girlfriend- when in fact, the two relationships aren't one and the same. A soulmate isn't the person you married just because, well... you're married to them. Not all soulmates are romantic partnerships, and people can certainly have more than one. It's often a case where two soulmates struggle to have a successful relationship due to the karmic debt they share and the pain they've caused each other during their spiritual journeys. It's certainly not all doom and gloom, but not always the romantic fantasy that is sold to us in movies.

There had been nothing more blue than her eyes. It was the first thing that Arthur had noticed about her, and the last thing he’d seen before she’d passed away. It wasn’t sudden, but to lose his love still hurt all the same. To pass the time, he sat alone in their living space, remembering her. He picked apart all the details of their home, reflecting on every moment that he could recall with her.

Like most humans on this earth, I wanted to find love. As a young girl, I didn’t know what that meant exactly but I knew I wanted to find my Prince Charming. I wanted to be in love.

So I am a divorced mother of a teenage daughter and I don't know what the hell I am doing with my life. I left home at 18 with the entire world within my reach or so I thought. I went to college and met who I thought was the man of my dreams! He was 7 years my senior and simply put, FINE AS HELL! Which is an absolute weakness of mine. We had a whirlwind romance and became inseparable. People would even say we looked and talked alike. He had just gotten out of the military and was about to graduate and after he did, moved me to his hometown.

Once very recently, I was hiking with my two dogs, Stirling and Thistle, in the mountains of North Carolina. As we traveled along, seeing many beautiful sights. from rock formations and powerful waterfalls to wonderous valleys viewed from splendorous mountains, we happened upon a rock bridge that appeared to be natural, but was indeed man-made, but blended in very well with the surrounding area.

First off, let me start by saying I am the wife, and I am very happily married. My husband and I have been married for about a year (which I know is not very long); however, everyday feels unique, and I fall in love more and more. That is not to say it hasn't come with its challenges like most wives would say. And I know for a fact I am not the only new wife out there discovering new and unexpected things about their husbands or themselves for that matter in such a committed relationship. I grew up in the South, where getting married is just something people do at a certain point in their life. I also haven't known many healthy relationships and haven't seen many successful marriages around me, but I had heard of them and believed in them and it never discouraged me from longing for that dreamy wedding and the idea of that handsome beau holding flowers in his hands to take me to dinner. I knew one thing and one thing only: anyone whom I have ever seen that is happy and successful are emotionally stable, live for more than just themselves and they eventually get married. I wanted to be this person. So I could tell you the short and dreamy way I met him, but I'll keep it simple. In short, we met at work (wouldn't recommend doing that however it happens), started to hang out and a few months later he proposed. We took a marriage class because, like I said before, I have never really seen a successful marriage in action...only heard of them. It was obviously very insightful with things that you kind of learn as you become an adult like communication is important, be respectful of the other's point of view, how you both are with money, how to deal with merging family, etc. So with my short time of being married to the most wonderful human being who is my husband, here are the top 5 things I didn't know before I got married.

Time is precious, it's valuable.

I'll preface this by saying, all situations are their own. Everyone has unique experiences. So of course, you may have found the love of your life and think this title is silly. But, from a biased perspective of a single lady haha (all perspectives have bias), I believe the collective will be happier if we focus our energy on lifting up singleness to a higher pedestal than finding a partner. Stop trying to set your friends up, instead, be impressed by them doing shit and finding themselves on their own.

When I was 14 I got my first boyfriend, we dated for four years, he broke my heart.

I'm terrible at replying to texts. I really am. Most people who know me know not to expect a swift reply. Some of my friends even have a running joke going that I'll get back to them in three to five business days. This does not mean I don't care, don't love the person who sent the message, or that I'm mad at them.

Hi, I'm a 31 year old girl. I just separated from my partner after five years and I've been single for a while, but I can not know anyone. I would like to start having a relationship with someone, but my life is very stable and routine, and I find it difficult to meet new people. I've signed up for social activities but I haven't met anyone either. I'm thinking about downloading some apps to meet people but I'm a little embarrassed and afraid that it's not for me. Is it good that I sign up for these apps? Thank you.

Instagram is like a bad ex-boyfriend.