deep in love Archives

Capture his Heart and Go Deeper in Love

August 14, 2015January 22, 2024 by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS

Are you longing to go deeper in your dating relationship but not sure how to connect and take your relationship to the next level? Eric Charles gives a man’s point of view on what your beau is looking for.

What does it take to get a man to truly commit and want only you? It’s a question I’ve been asked more times than I could ever quantify.

What men desire most is a woman who inspires them to be their best self. Being that woman is a much different mindset than what most women typically do these days.

So what’s the major error that trips women up? It’s their focus. Instead of focusing on the feelings and experience they create for the man, the woman fixates on her own wants, her own worries, her own fears. And amidst this completely self-absorbed mindset consumed by what she wants, it’s no wonder that she’s unable to hook a man’s interest in a significant way, one that goes beyond just hooking up.

Sure, that woman might cook him dinners, perform in bed, and tell him how much she likes him, but none of that stuff penetrates a man’s psychology on a deep and meaningful level. Forget about just getting commitment. When you really understand and master the art of tapping into the deep parts of a man’s psyche, he will want to move mountains to possess you.

Men don’t start out there when they first meet a woman, though. She needs to reach him at that level by recognizing his ambitions, his fears, his motivations, his “mission” in life and where he ultimately wants to “win.”

Here are four ways to reach a man deeply and make him want to commit and devote himself fully to you.

1. Understand: Choice is Everything

I have a confession to make, when I was revising this article to get it ready for publishing, it was three ways to make him commit… not 4.

The original article came off cold, harsh, and even depressing because I had left out the most important element of all. So in this revised version, I made sure to convey the most important piece of the puzzle right at the beginning.

Who you choose is by far the most important factor in all relationships. So one of the most important ways to make a guy commit is to get really good at understanding the reality of relationships, love, and your specific guy.

In my personal life, I meet all sorts of people. Some people are easy and fun to be around… I can spend hours with them, talking about things, laughing about things, and just genuinely enjoying their company. Being around them doesn’t require effort and I don’t want anything from them. I would have just as much fun driving in the car with them and chatting as I would doing something “exciting.”

On the other hand, there are people who I meet that immediately make me feel uncomfortable and defensive. I feel like I have to constantly be on my toes, choose my words carefully, and being around them is far from pleasurable.

Between those two extremes, there are all sorts of people who fall somewhere in the middle.

As a writer who talks about dating and relationships, what has always amazed me when it comes to relationships is how people completely disregard compatibility. They describe what it’s like to be with their guy and it almost sounds like they’re talking about their arch-enemy… there is no comfort, no trust, no compatibility.

Sometimes the relationship started out well and then over time disintegrated into something that resembles resentment and abuse rather than love or respect. Sometimes the relationship was never good to begin with, but the woman wants me to show her “relationship magic” to “make it work.” This is what I equate to trying to shove a square peg through a round hole.

Personally, I needed to date around and experience several relationships before I had a good understanding of what I really wanted, valued, and resonated with in a relationship. In my late teens and early twenties, for example, I knew that I wanted a girl that had a hot, fit body and a beautiful face.

Now, in my thirties, I realize how much I value having a woman who really “gets” me… a woman that I can talk to for hours every day and never feel bored… a woman who I can laugh with for hours and hours on end… a woman that I know how to be there for and who knows how to be there for me.

It took me a while to figure that out. When I realized it, I mentally revisited my past relationships and realized something very important that I want to pass along to you…

When I think of relationships that didn’t work out for me in the past (ones where I wanted things to work out and I got dumped), I realize that the woman I was with at the time was never going to be that woman with me. Even if she wanted it to work.

I can clearly see now, years later after all the emotion and attachment is completely gone, we never would have reached that level of intimacy that is ultimately valuable to me in a relationship.

I couldn’t see past my attachment to those relationships, though, or past my blind desire to make things work because I didn’t want to fail, I didn’t want to be rejected, and I didn’t want to lose someone.

All those emotions have nothing to do with love or compatibility. They’re just fear, ego, and a false sense of identifying with relationship success.

Real relationship success is not about making a relationship with someone work when, at your core, you and him are ultimately incompatible. It can be hard to see if you’re blinded by fears of loss, self-doubt and relationship fantasies that you want to come true…

The thing to realize is that people with great relationships don’t have the great relationships because they know great relationship secrets or psychological loopholes of the male mind. Fundamentally, people in the best relationships all have one thing in common: they don’t have relationships with people who are not a good match for them. They don’t let them into their life.

And what’s the easiest way to know if they’re a good match or not? Plain and simple – how do you feel about yourself when you’re with that person? Do you feel better about yourself? About life? About the things that upset you?

Or… do you feel insecure? Do you feel like you’re walking on eggshells? Do you feel like you’re suffocating… holding your breath in anticipation of a relationship that you desperately want to come into existence but always seems just out of reach? Helpless, powerless, and afraid they’ll do something to hurt you?

How you feel with the person you’re with is the best indication of whether you’re with someone who’s compatible or not. How much you want it to work is the worst indicator of a good relationship (in fact, usually the people who tell me how desperately they want something to work are highlighting how incompatible they really are from their partner)

2. Attraction:

The guy you’re into has to be sexually attracted to you. This is not a radical claim, it’s just fact. If he doesn’t feel a sense of biological, physical attraction to you, then nothing else I say will matter. His physical attraction isn’t the end-all be-all of his desire to be with you, but it is a required foundation.

That’s the bad news… if you want to call it that. The good news is that some of the most powerful seductresses the world has ever known were not the most beautiful.

My advice is to strive to be as attractive as you possibly can, and fortunately, this is largely in your control. And for the things you can’t control…. own it.

Too many women kill their attractiveness by walking around with insecurities and no self-esteem because they feel that something about their appearance is flawed and they’ll never be good enough to attract the man they really want.

Whatever your supposed fault is, I can guarantee that your self-doubt is far more unattractive. Nobody is perfect and no man demands or expects perfection. But those who own their imperfections are massively more attractive than those who do not or cannot.

There is definitely something attractive about a woman who owns her imperfections and is totally OK with them. Conversely, being insecure is a massive energy drain to you and the people around you. Insecurity stinks of desperation and desperation kills attraction.

So change what you can to be sexier and more physically alluring and appealing. Spend more time at the gym, eat healthier, learn how to apply makeup to enhance your best features, train your voice to be pleasant and seductive (tape recording yourself works wonders), master attractive body language and facial expressions, dress to flatter your figure, you get the point. And that which you can’t change… own it.

3. Reach Him Deeply

What makes you irreplaceable in the eyes of your man? Your ability to reach deep into the depths of who he is and inspire him. To put it more bluntly, you must offer something that is much more rare and valuable than sex if you want him to treat you as something important in his life. I mean… duh, right? And yet this obvious truth gets distorted and overlooked.

Ask yourself: what are you bringing to the table besides a physical hookup that he values deeply?

Sex is readily available. Having it isn’t enough to make a relationship and withholding it isn’t enough to cast some kind of “love spell” on a guy (maybe it worked 100 years ago, but withholding sex till X date is just plain obsolete now….he’ll just go somewhere else).

Men have a deep unconscious fear that their life, their contribution to the world and their existence is pointless, meaningless, and insignificant. At the same time, every man has hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

And here’s the major lesson: In order for a man to feel truly alive and truly fulfilled, he needs to be pursuing his deepest aspiration and his “mission” in life. Your ultimate gift as a woman is to inspire him to do that, to realize his ultimate potential as a man.

4. Put Energy Into the Right Places

Creating the foundation for a strong, healthy relationship comes down tot putting energy into the right places. Worrying and stressing is not putting energy into the right places.

If you’re still stuck in feeling needy and out of control, you’re not going to see the necessity of bringing that value to the relationship because you’ll still be fixated on your own worries, your fears, your insecurities. And with that fixation, you won’t be able to put energy into the relationship, you’ll have wasted all your energy needlessly worrying about stuff.

I understand that after you’ve been continually hurt and disappointed by men using you, you may have formed some insecurities and frustration around relationships. But in the end, those emotions do nobody a favor – they repel men, they waste your energy, and they make everyone miserable.

The only way to get out of that cycle and move towards building a firm foundation that leads to a good relationship is to find your own self-love and fulfillment independent of a relationship.

Remember: a relationship will never fill an emotional void, complete you, or “make you” happy. You have to show up to a relationship “whole” and happy already. If you show up “broken,” the guy will either leave or you’ll attract the type of guy who will take advantage of you… then leave.

The energy you put into the relationship is the only thing that matters. Putting energy doesn’t come from a self-absorbed place, it isn’t attached to feelings of anxiety, fear, worry, anger, rage, resentment. You are outside of yourself and putting energy into giving him that “extra something” that makes you valuable, rare, and inspirational to the guy.

I don’t care if you like it. I don’t care if you think it’s fair or unfair. It is a simple truth that people value those who bring a unique, special, meaningful value to the table. If you honestly think that you can have a man want to choose you and only you forever without bringing something deeply valuable to him… then you’re either choosing very low quality men or you just haven’t thought through reality yet.

Sex is not enough. And loving him the way you want to be loved is not enough either. When it comes to him choosing you, you have to love him in the way that’s deeply meaningful to him. Your energy would be better spent figuring out what this is rather than worrying about him leaving you.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

One Man Analyzed The World’s Languages to Discover At Least 14 Different Kinds of Love

February 28, 2018January 22, 2024 by Sarah Burrisin LOVE, RELATIONSHIPS

There are at least 14 different kinds of love that one man was able to uncover simply by analyzing the world’s languages.

Dr. Tim Lomas at the University of East London has been a lecturer in positive psychology for the past five years. In a report from The Conversation this month, Lomas explained that there is nothing more expansive than the feeling of love. It ranges from the love you have for your favorite pair of shoes to the love you have of your child or partner.

In the 1970s, psychologist John Lee put together his own identification of love. So, Lomas noted that he isn’t the first to look into the way the world loves. However, there’s more than just the six “styles” of love Lee developed, and Lomas has them.

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Check out the full article reprinted with permission from The Conversation below:

No emotion, surely, is as cherished and sought after as love. Yet on occasions such as Valentine’s day, we can often be misled into thinking that it consists solely in the swooning, star-crossed romance of falling deeply “in love.” But on reflection, love is far more complex. Indeed, arguably no word covers a wider range of feelings and experiences than love.

So how can we ever define what love really is? In my new study, published in the Journal for the Theory of Social Analysis, I’ve made a start by searching the world’s languages for words relating to love that don’t exist in English.

Most of us use the word love fairly liberally. I use it for the deep ardour, care and respect I have for my wife. But I will also call upon it to describe the unshakeable bonds of kinship and history I share with my family, and the connections and allegiances I have with close friends. I’ll even use it in relation to our cheeky dog Daisy, the music of Tom Waits, Sunday morning lie ins and many other things.

Clearly, whatever love is, it spans a great deal of emotional and experiential territory. Needless to say, I’m not the first to notice this. For instance, in the 1970s, the psychologist John Lee identified six different “styles” of love. He did so by studying other languages, in particular the classical lexicons of Greek and Latin, which boast a wealth of precise words describing specific kinds of love.

Lee identified three primary forms of love. “Eros” denotes passion and desire, “ludus” refers to flirtatious, playful affection, and “storgē” describes familial or companionate bonds of care. He then paired these primary forms to produce three secondary forms: ludus plus storgē creates “pragma,” a rational, sensible long-term accommodation. However, eros combined with ludus generates “mania,” signifying possessive, dependent, or troubled intimacies, while eros and storgē form the charitable, selfless compassion of “agápē.”

This analysis seems like a good start, but an incomplete one. After all, it mostly just concerns romantic partnerships, and doesn’t account for many of the feelings that fall within the ambit of love.

Untranslatable words

I decided to expand on this work as part of a broader lexicographic project to collect so-called “untranslatable” words that pertain to well-being, a work-in-progress which currently features nearly 1,000 words. Such words can reveal phenomena which have been overlooked or under-appreciated in one’s own culture, as I explore in two forthcoming books (a general interest exploration of key words, and an academic analysis of the lexicography). In the case of love, then, untranslatable words help us understand the bountiful variety of emotions and bonds that are in English subsumed within the one word “love.”

My enquiry yielded hundreds of words from around 50 languages (which of course leaves many languages still to be explored). I analysed these thematically, grouping the words into 14 distinct “flavours” of love. Some languages were particularly prolific in their lexical dexterity, especially Greek, which contributed the most words by far.

As such, in a spirit of poetic consistency, I gave each flavour a relevant Greek label. I call these “flavours” to avoid implying that relationships can be exclusively pigeonholed as constituting just one form. A romantic partnership, say, might blend several flavours together, generating a unique “taste” which might subtly change over time.

14 flavours

So, what are these flavours? The first three do not concern people at all. They refer to people’s fondness and passion for certain activities (meraki), places (chōros) and objects (eros). Note that this usage of eros reflects its deployment in classical Greece, where it was often used in the context of aesthetic appreciation rather than romance. Indeed, like love itself, all these words can be used in varied and changing ways.

Each of these flavours is a “compound” of related terms from various languages. For instance, the connection to place denoted by chōros is reflected in concepts such as “turangawaewae,” “cynefin” and “querencia” – from Māori, Welsh and Spanish respectively – which all pertain in some way to the sentiment of having a “place to stand” on this Earth, somewhere secure that we can call home.

When it comes to love between people, the first three are the non-romantic forms of care, affection and loyalty we extend towards family (storgē), friends (philia), and ourselves (philautia). Then, embracing romance, Lee’s notions of pragma, mania, and ludus are joined by the passionate desire of “epithymia,” and the star-crossed destiny of “anánkē.”

Again, these labels all bring together related terms from diverse languages. For instance, the spirit of anánkē is found in terms like the Japanese “koi no yokan,” which roughly means “premonition of love,” capturing the feeling on first meeting someone that falling in love will be inevitable. And likewise the Chinese term “yuán fèn” can be interpreted as a binding force of irresistible destiny.

Finally, there are three forms of selfless, “transcendent” love, in which one’s own needs and concerns are relatively diminished. These are the compassion of agápē, ephemeral sparks of “participatory consciousness,” such as when we are emotionally swept up within a group dynamic (koinonia), and the kind of reverential devotion that religious believers might hold towards a deity (sebomai).

Clearly, there any many ways we can love and be loved. You and your life partner might well experience feelings of epithymia, pragma, or anánkē, but may also – or alternatively, instead – be blessed with moments of storgē, agápē and koinonia. Likewise, a deep friendship could similarly be suffused with some mixture of flavours such as pragma, storgē, agápē and anánkē, in which we feel a profound and fated bond of lifelong connection.

Moreover, this list is merely preliminary, with other flavours potentially yet to be acknowledged. So hopefully we can be reassured that even if we are not romantically head-over-heels “in love” – in that archetypal Hollywood fashion – our lives may still be graced by love in some precious and uplifting way.

Falling in Love Onstage: Finding My Lover Through the Magic of Theatre

March 30, 2018January 22, 2024 by Rae Meghanin LOVE, RELATIONSHIPS

I’ve been a performer for my entire life. Now, I’ve met my love thanks to the theatre.

A majority of my friends are involved in the theatre scene, which isn’t especially surprising since I was part of a theatre troupe in high school and studied theatre in New York City. It also isn’t especially surprising that the only people I’ve really dated have been involved in the entertainment world as well.

High school and college was filled with romantic drama surrounding my theatre crushes. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of falling for people that have played my onstage love interests a few times. Onstage chemistry is very important to me, and sometimes those feelings bleed into real life.

Do I always act on it? No. That would be unprofessional. But I have slipped up once or twice.

However, there was one time where it was actually successful. I met my dream man through my “Rocky Horror” shadowcast. Which was, in all honesty, something that I expected would happen since I was a kid. Rocky is incredibly important to me, and there’s no way I could have ever dated someone that didn’t like it.

I met Chris a little after I joined Rocky around last year. We had known of each other in passing at cons and such, but didn’t become friends at first. One of the few times we did talk was via Facebook message, where he gave me advice about how to construct a costume piece. I didn’t think anything of it.

Around the time I joined his cast was when we really became friends. I had a falling out with a few friends, so I turned to him for help getting through the tough time. We ended up quickly becoming best friends, with me staying at his house often and going on adventures constantly. He treated me well, but again, I didn’t think anything of it in a romantic sense.

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Then the on-stage romance began.

A few months into our friendship, I started playing Columbia. He plays Eddie, so it made perfect sense that he would be performing with me in my first show. I was so nervous about the performance, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Something just felt weird about playing my best friend’s girlfriend. Maybe it was a subconscious thing, who knows.

Cut to a month later, and we’re dating. After a three-show day in late October (our prime season), we realized we had something more to our relationship and took it to the next level.

Now, Chris and I have performed together as Eddie and Columbia with three different casts, traveling as far as Toronto.

It’s an interesting life we have, being two performers who date, not to mention live together. Our life consists of making costume pieces, constantly practicing at home in front of the TV, and me reminding him which days he’s performing (I’ve become almost his Rocky secretary in that sense).

Before every show, we usually get ready at home, me sitting in front of a mirror for an hour trying to cover my eyebrows with a glue stick, and him making sure his beloved leather vest is good to go.

Doing Rocky on tour feels akin to being in a traveling circus, and it can be a very high-strung and energetic environment. For that, I am grateful for Chris. He keeps me grounded through all of the stress of performing, and it’s comforting to know that whenever I feel insecure or nervous on stage, he’s right up there with me.

Even when one of us isn’t performing, the other is usually in the audience showing support. The amount of pride I feel when I’m in the crowd watching him emcee a show is like nothing else, in fact, I usually tend to turn to the person next to me and say something along the lines of “He’s so weird. I’m so proud of him.”

Once the show’s over, and after we’ve had a traditional late night breakfast with our castmates, we usually go home and immediately pass out. We tend to spend the rest of the next day at home, doing chores and watching “Friday the 13th” movies like the homebodies we truly are. It’s important to find balance.

I’m eternally grateful for the life I currently live. I get to write all day, perform all night, and get to do it alongside the love of my life. It honestly everything I could have asked for, and it’s only the beginning. We have plans to travel all around the world to perform, and we hope to continue doing for as long as we possibly can.