Love Lesson

Dating, Romance, Love And Marriage - How To Meet The Right Man

If you’re looking for “Mr. Right”, and keep finding “Mr. Give me a Try”, then you may not be going about it the right way. The last thing you want, is to become another lonely, desperate soul who chases everyone away because you’re trying to get married quickly. If you play your cards right, and can stay calm, cool, and collected, you may improve your chances of finding “Mr. Right”. Here are a few tips that I have to offer:

First, know what you’re looking for. Finding the perfect man should start with a definition of what you call, “Mr. Right”. Keep in mind that it will differ from your best friends, and that’s okay. That just means the two of you won’t be competing (as much!). Don’t be surprised if you’re sights have been narrowed over the years. You’re just getting a better idea of whom you are compatible with and your chances of success increase with each new parameter. Most of all, don’t force something that isn’t there.

Second, be patient. There’s no rush and rushing into things will only cloud your judgment. There’s nothing wrong with going out with the first person that asks you, but keep that in mind. There will be plenty more, so if he doesn’t meet your criteria and seem like the ideal person for you, then you’re free to thank him for the great evening and move on. The evening of companionship will be nice, but don’t expect him to be the one to remove you from your life of solitude and loneliness.

Third, if you’re in a relationship and he doesn’t fit your criteria, you must reevaluate why you are with him. Just because you have someone to date, doesn’t mean that he’s the right one for you. Being with him may cause you to miss other opportunities that could send your “Mr. Right” into the arms of another woman.

Fourth, if things aren’t working out --- network. Enlarge your circle of friends and try going out with new people. If you spend most of your time with co-workers, then try to look up old college friends through the alumni association. Join a new gym or start shopping at a new grocery store. “Mr. Right” is out there, you just need to increase your chances of bumping into him. Don’t forget to try social networking websites, like Meet2Go.com, parties, wine tasting events, and “fun runs”.

Fifth, volunteer. Even if you’re not turned on by the thought of working for free, if you’re not an outgoing person this is a great opportunity to be forced to be socially active with another person, or other people. When choosing events, think first about where you’re likely to find “Mr. Right”. Will he be working at the local soup kitchen on Saturday morning, or helping walk dogs at the animal shelter? Try and choose something that you think will yield the most success.

Sixth, put yourself out there and leave your body position “open to communication”. By this I mean go out to coffee shops, books stores, food courts, or city parks. When you’re there, leave the seat open next to you and look approachable. It’s also helpful to carry “props”. By props I mean something that puts you in that place for a reason, and is easy to start a conversation about. Keep in mind, if should be relevant to the area, so sitting in a bookstore twirling a Frisbee on your finger is out of the question, ladies. If men see an opportunity to approach you and ask you a question, or make a comment about a book that you’re reading, you’re doing the right thing.

Seventh, go where men go. If you’re shopping for a diamond you don’t look in “Claire’s Boutique” do you? Probably not. Stop by a sports bar on a big game night, wearing a jersey for the local favorite team (remember to remove the tag if you just bought it on your way there!). If you know anything about sports, don’t hesitate to dazzle the local men with your intimate knowledge of the passing records for John Elway. If you don’t know sports, claim to be there to support a friend and are like watching the game, but admittedly don’t know much about it. Your best bet may be to visit Google or ESPN.com and do a little research on who’s who in the big game.

Eighth, above all else, be yourself. While it may not seem like it all the time, men want to know who you are. The real you is bound to come out and visit sooner or later, so why not make it sooner? If he doesn’t like you for who you are, then he’s probably not your “Mr. Right”. Good luck, and happy dating!

About the Author - Chloe Miller recomments Meet2Go.com A new friendship and online dating platform. Online Dating LondonPost activities and find partners with similar interests. Online Dating Free, Friends, Activities

How To Be Romantic When You Have Kids

There is just no denying it – children change a relationship. No matter how much passion, fire, and intimacy you have once children are born your relationship will change. The main change will come about as you begin to put the needs of your children and the family unit as a whole as a priority, followed by the needs of the couple. Many times, husbands and wives begin to feel neglected as the day-to-day struggles of life take their toll.

Not only do the day’s tasks take their toll on the relationship, but also many couples begin to feel very tired. Both parties may be working and then have to deal with the family responsibilities when they come home, or maybe mom stays home all day and eagerly waits for dad to arrive so he can help with the kids. This may be unfair to dad who has worked hard all day and wants to come home to take a break. Either way, one thing is certain- the romantic life suffers.

However, there is hope. Just because you have children, doesn’t mean that you have to throw away all romantic notions by the wayside. In fact, marriages are strengthened and become more stable when couples commit to spending time together and engaging in romantic activities.

The first area to consider is spending time together alone. When children come into the picture (especially babies) finding time alone can be challenging. New moms especially are tired and may even look forward to when dad comes home so they can get some rest. It is a good idea to set aside some time where the two of you can just be alone. If that means taking a nap during the day when the baby is sleeping, then do so. Once the baby or older children go to bed, take advantage of the time that you and your partner have alone. It may be a while before you find a babysitter and feel comfortable leaving your little one at home, but that doesn’t mean that you and your partner can no longer be romantic.

Here are some activities that you can do with your partner once your children are asleep:

Have a picnic by the fireplace

This is great for cold winter nights. Light a fire, lay down a blanket (or a bear skin rug) and have a picnic by the fireplace. Some wonderful items to include are: wine, cheese, fruit, or chocolate covered strawberries. Everyone agrees that there is nothing more romantic then firelight.

Sit outside on the patio and watch the stars.

A wonderfully romantic getaway (while not straying far from home) is to simply stargaze with your lover. By the end of the evening, you will be staring at the stars in each other’s eyes.

Take a bubble bath together

Nothing beats a large garden tub made for two, if you have a hot tub or Jacuzzi all the better. After the children go to bed, enjoy a relaxing evening in the hot tub or Jacuzzi. If you don’t have one or the other, a bubble bath in a large tub is just as enjoyable.

Play a romantic game together

Playing a romantic game together is a great activity that will help put you in the mood. There are many games available for purchase online or at your local novelty supply store.

Read a book to your partner

Just lying in bed together, snuggling and cuddling while reading a book to your partner can be very romantic. It beats watching the television or a movie and allows for plenty of discourse. Besides, when you read a book together, you will always have that time as a cherished memory.

About the Author - Ron Zvagelsky has a degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. Use PlanJam.com to find additional dating and relationship advice along with date ideas.

Keeping A Marriage Romantic

Romantic relationships happen because of the hopes and dreams a couple has for a happy life together. The relationship will continue to be pleasant and rewarding as long as the hopes and dreams are kept alive by staying concerned about what is good with the relationship.

This article suggests ways for staying aware of what makes your romantic relationship worthwhile.

Don't Expect Too Much -

Don't expect a perfect relationship. That happens only in fairy tales. If you expect everything to be wonderful, it makes your relationship less valuable by comparison. Problems will occur. You will get hurt. Being too concerned with the problems will stop you from paying attention to what is good in the relationship.

Romance and love will more likely happen if you allow them to happen instead of making them a goal. If love is the goal, you will compare how the relationship is now to what you think it should be. You will be continually disappointed. Making the relationship better should be the goal. Pay attention to treating each other fairly and helping each other. If love happens, it will be based on believing that both of you can continue to build a good relationship.

Your attitude should signal the other person that you will try to patiently work through each other's shortcomings. It won't be easy. Being tolerant and non-condemning is a challenge. But consciously making an effort to be tolerant goes a long way.

Build Upon What Is Good -

Find activities that you both like and do them together. These can be activities such as gardening, cooking, hobbies, conversation, recreation, an interest in art, charity volunteering, and family activities. Having interests that are shared, keeps a couple involved in each other's lives.

Share ideas to find ways to more enjoy living. Tell your sweetheart about strategies you use for such things as achieving goals and enjoying yourself. Tell each other about what you think is interesting, what is worthwhile, and what is encouraging. If you share positive ideas, you will think of each other as pleasant and enjoyable.

Encourage your partner to act and make decisions. Both of you will be able to accomplish more with the other's support and encouragement. When there is a disagreement, be patient. If you need to criticize, offer a positive alternative rather than a condemnation. Your encouragement likely will produce more good results than will your objections.

The good things in life are much more important than the disappointments. Reward yourself for the good in what you are doing and take some time to do what you enjoy.

About the author - Alan Detwiler is the author of the ebook Date Ideas: Fun Things To Do For Couples available at amazon.com He has a web site with a section about fun things to do for couples at leisureideas.com/date ideas.htm.

Tips To Spice Up Your Marriage

Every marriage needs a little relief from the same old bedroom routine now and then. Here is a collection of tips to up the Scoville units in your romance.

Get Wet and Wild

The bath or shower can be more than just a place to get clean! It can also be a sexy rendezvous to reconnect with your spouse. Taking the time to bathe each other and wash one another’s hair can be a sensual delight. Steam up the bathroom with some erotic accessories inviting to both you and your spouse. If you have the available counter space or open shelves, place scented candles around the room. Keep aromatic bath oils and waterproof toys close by. Just be sure you have a private place to store your toys if you have children or expect guests.

One if by Land...

Keep a set of "signal" sheets (or even just a signal pillow) that you or your spouse can put on the bed to silently request a romantic tryst. Pick an unusual color, a sexy material like satin or a bold pattern - or a pillow with a sexy come-hither saying on it.

An Appetite for Love

Prepare a dinner that is a prelude to love wearing nothing but an apron and a smile. There are so many foods that have been thought to be aphrodisiacs that you will have no problem planning a menu. Some ideas are oysters, pine nuts, peaches, grapes, walnuts -- even asparagus - or just serve something special to the two of you. More important than the food is that the meal stirs the senses by evoking arousing smells, tastes and textures. Don't forget to play mood music and put candles in every room. You don't even have to make it to the bedroom - why not have a change of sexual venue in the kitchen?

Go Postal!

Buy some pretty or provocative stationery - or use your computer to create an invitation for a romantic date or trip for you and your spouse. Include all of the details including the time, date, what to wear and where to meet, but keep the romantic event itself a surprise. Address the envelope to your spouse and mail it to him or her. In this era of instant communication with email, text messaging and cell phones, the invitation will be a romantic surprise.

Let's Dance

Remember when a mix tape was sooo romantic? To get you in the mood, make a mix CD of all of your favorite sexy songs or fun songs and have a dance together. Get as wild or as romantic as you wish - your dances can go as far as you like. You can add a bump-and-grind music and do your own strip tease or some salsa and do your own forbidden dance of love.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Don't forget simple pleasures. Brushing your spouse's hair, a light sensual massage or just cuddling can be extremely sensuous. Touching always leads to more touching. Play touching games by seeing how lightly you can run your hands over your spouse's body, spell out suggestive words with your finger and see if he or she can guess what you wrote.

Hide and Seek

Take a sexy picture of yourself and hide it with a suggestive note in his or her briefcase, wallet or lunch box. Just make sure not to put it where it may be found by children or coworkers.
Trick or Treat
Costumes are not just for kids at Halloween. There are so many sexy costumes out there for men and women. Try role playing as a pilot and a stewardess - or a teacher and a schoolgirl - or a real estate agent and a prospective home buyer. The possibilities are endless. Fantasy foreplay can lead you to realms of spiciness you never knew existed. Let your imagination run wild.

Romance Zone

Keep your bedroom off limits for everything except sleep and romance. Do not allow it to be a center of the household where you write bills or do work, it should be a haven for you and your spouse and a stress-free zone where you enjoy one another and your marriage. Use soft colors and fabrics, fresh cut flowers on your nightstand, mirrors and your favorite art - anything to create an atmosphere of relaxation and sensuality.

About the Author - Copyright 2005 katieroseintimates.com Katie Rose is the owner of Katie Rose Intimates Sexy Costumes and Lingerie A fine lingerie shop featuring fantasy clothing, leather and lace and intimate apparel in sexy, erotic, romantic and unique styles - with special attention plus sizes.

You can use these romantic quotations as Valentine's Day toasts

You can use these romantic quotations as Valentine's Day toasts

The most precious possession
that ever comes to a man in this world
is a woman's heart.
-- J. G. Holland

Wishing you
A house full of sunshine,
Hearts full of cheer,
Love that grows deeper
each day of the year.
-- from an old Welsh blessing

One word frees us
of all the weight and pain of life;
That word is love.
-- Sophocles

We are born for love.
It is the principle
of existence
and its only end.
-- Benjamin Disraeli

In as much as love grows in you,
so in you beauty grows.
For love
is the beauty of the soul.
-- St. Augustine

Love is like a rose,
the joy of all the earth...
Love is like a lovely rose,
the world's delight.
-- Christina Rossetti

Life is to be fortified by many friendships.
To love, and to be loved, is the greatest
happiness of existence.
-- Sydney Smith

Love is not getting, but giving.
-- Henry van Dyke

May your joys be as bright as the morning,
your years of happiness
as numerous as the stars in the heavens,
and your troubles but shadows
that fade in the sunlight of love.
-- An Old English Blessing

Nothing is sweeter than love;
nothing stronger, nothing higher,
nothing wider, nothing happier,
nothing fuller, nothing better
in heaven and earth...
love flies, runs, and rejoices;
it is free and nothing can hold it back.
-- Thomas a Kempis

God, the best maker of all marriages,
combine your hearts in one,
your realms in one.
-- Shakespeare

True love's the gift which God has
given
To man alone beneath the heaven...
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.
-- Sir Walter Scott

We do not wish you joy without sorrow
Nor endless day without the healing
dark,
Nor brilliant sun without the restful
shadow,
Nor tides that never turn against your
bark.
We wish you love, and strength, and
faith, and wisdom,
Goods, gold enough to help some
needy one,
We wish you songs, but also blessed
silence,
And God's sweet peace when every
day is done.
-- Dorothy Nell McDonald

From every human being there rises a
light
that reaches straight to heaven. And
when
two souls that are destined to be
together find
each other, their streams of light flow
together,
and a single brighter light goes forth
from their united being.
-- Baal Shem Tov

Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of
trouble, attempts what is above its
strength, pleads no excuse of
impossibility
It is therefore able to undertake all
things.
-- St. Thomas Aquinas

Love comforteth, like sunshine after
rain.
-- Shakespeare

A marriage...makes of two fractional
lives a whole;
it gives to two purposeless lives
a work, and doubles the strength
of each to perform it;
it gives to two
questioning natures
a reason for living,
and something to live for;
it will give a new gladness
to the sunshine,
a new fragrance to the flowers,
a new beauty to the earth,
and a new mystery to life.
-- Mark Twain

Happiness is only in loving.
-- Tolstoy

Any time that is not spent on love is
wasted.
-- Torquato Tasso

Heaven give you many, many merry days!
-- Shakespeare

Who can doubt that we exist only to
love?
We live not a moment exempt from its
influence.
-- Blaise Pascal

That love is all there is
Is all we know of love.
-- Emily Dickinson

Those who love deeply never grow old.
-- Sir Arthur Wing Pinero

The world is full of beauty
when the heart is full of love.
-- W. L. Smith

Love means the body, the soul,
the life, the entire being.
-- Guy de Maupassant

Love is the life of the soul.
It is the harmony of the universe.
W. E. Channing
Give all to love;
obey thy heart.
-- Emerson

Were there nothing else
For which to praise the heavens
but only love...
Only love were cause enough
for praise.
-- Tennyson

Love Quotes for Valentine's Day

Your words are my food, your breath is my wine.
You are everything to me.
~Sarah Bernhardt

Through all eternity to thee
A joyful song I'll raise,
For oh! Eternity is too short
To utter all thy praise.
~Joseph Addison

I love you not only for what you are,
but for what I am when I am with you.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be.
~Robert Browning

The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence.
~Edward Thomas

We are all born for love.
It is the principle of existence, and its only end.
~Benjamin Disraeli

Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
~The Bible : 1 Corinthians

Love is friendship set on fire.
~Jeremy Taylor

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.
~William Shakespeare

The torch of love is lit in the kitchen.
~French Proverb

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
that word is love.
~Sophocles

Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

You don't marry someone you can live with,
you marry the person who you cannot live without.
~Author unknown

Of all the earthly music, that which reaches farthest into heaven is the beating of a truly loving heart.
~Henry Ward Beecher

Who Was Valentine?

You have to return to February 14th in the year 269 AD to understand how Valentines day came about.

269 AD was a bad year for Christians because the Romans didn’t have much in the way of regard for followers of Christ.

The reason was because the Romans were Pantheists and so they believed in several Gods, while Christians believed in only one God.

The notion that there might only be one God made the Romans feel very uneasy because a 'One God' idea undermined the very existence of the Roman Empire.

So the Romans reacted to Christians with their strongest weapon - Persecution.

For years to come the local amphitheatres had plenty in the way of stock. Your average Roman could spend Sunday afternoon watching pesky Christians being mauled by lions or dismembered by burly gladiators as the Roman leaders sought to be done with them.

Emerging from this persecution was a man that every card manufacturer and rose grower should be grateful for - a pig headed individual called Valentine.

Valentine was a devout Christian and even the threat of death from the Romans wouldn’t deter him from practicing his religion.

He flaunted his beliefs in front of the Romans - even carrying out secret Christian Marriages in the dead of night - a practice forbidden by Claudius II, the Roman Emperor.

Such blatant disregard for authority had to be stamped out and so as was the custom of the day, the decision was made to put an end to Valentines life.

The date of his execution was set for February 14th.

Concidentially, February 14th was also the day that Romans honoured Juno, the Goddess of women and marriage and queen of all Gods. And Juno day was something of an event in early Rome...

Back then, chaps and lasses led very separate lives - no mixed schools or kissing behind the bicycle sheds.

However, each year in celebration of Juno, young people participated in a game where the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars.

The young bucks of the time drew a girls name from the jar and this became their partner for the Juno festival. It was commonplace for these couples to eventually get married.

The date of Valentines execution coincided with this Roman lottery.

To further add to the mystery surrounding Valentine, legend has it that while Valentine sat in prison awaiting execution he befriended the jailers daughter. How that came about is anyones guess - a jailers daughter befriending a man about to be executed...hmm...

Anyway St. Val and the jailers daughter became bosom pals, and the story goes that on the eve of his execution he sent her a farewell note that he signed 'From Your Valentine'.

Little did he know that these three little words would be immortalised as an indication of love for centuries to come.

About the Author - Once described by The Sunday Times as the "finest luxury portal in the world", we’d like to think we’ve earned that reputation. toffsworld.com

Grow Your Online Dating Relationship

Just like regular real-world relationships, online relationships need tending, to grow over time. Here are some quick growing tips.

1. Take time and make time. Does your online date get in touch with you regularly? Do you do the same? Neglecting virtual meetings can be considered abuse or neglect, so treat each other’s time with respect. If it’s lacking, might mean time to move on.

2. Communication needs to “feel” right for both of you. If one of you is too pushy about meeting, for instance, that can give off bad vibes. So don’t rush. Take time to learn more about each other and develop trust.

3. Respect each others privacy. Don’t share personal email addresses or digital photos online, for example, if your online date sent you the information in confidence. 

4. Share special online and offline fun times. Online – send greeting cards, links to favorite places to upload digital photos of your favorite pet, download music and video clips, post on favorite forums of interest. Offline- if you’re exchanging addresses or post office boxes, send print greeting cards and postcards, small items from your area (like a key chain with your state bird).

Tend your online relationship. Water it with care and over time it can sprout and grow.