It’s especially easy to fall in love with someone we don’t know.

I like you best when I hardly know you at all, glancing at you across a crowded tea house. You turn me on; I imagine us vacationing in Turks and Caicos, making love until the wee hours of the night, then again the next morning on our way to honeymooning in Paris.

You smile, not at me, but at a passing thought, and it is obvious yours is the smile of my soulmate, my one and only. We are to live happily ever after and all of that will happen as soon as I know your name, court you and caress your endlessly sexy body.

In my daydream your room isn’t strewn with dirty clothes, your parents aren’t overbearing and they live far away, you like the same sort of food I do and the times and places we want sex are aligned with Swiss precision. I am a romantic painter with you a blank canvass.

Reaching out.

But converting that dream into a reality takes something special; it requires me to reach out. To take a risk. How often we don’t take that chance, we daydream instead of reaching out and go home alone. I vow that won’t happen here.

My body feels heavy with fear, the daydream falls away and my mind chatters about rejection—it remembers the last time my heart was broken and the time before that. It argues for staying in place, going home safe and alone. But I know how this works. The terror raging within me doesn’t mean anything: I don’t have to respond to it. Awkwardly I stand, I place one foot in front of the other in the direction of you and your laptop.

I mutter something as you look up at me, seeing me for the first time. It matters much less what I say than that I am there, right in front of you daring to say it. I have just done what few people on the planet would do. I have already won!

You graciously invite me to sit down and suddenly all my fear turns into excitement and joy. We are talking, at first about nothing, but then about ourselves: getting to know each other. I’m under your spell, and have broken free into a world in which I know you, love you and want you.

There is nothing better than getting to know you: the discovery that you are left handed, that your parents are still married, that you are witty. My attention reaches out to you and I forget about me; my problems melt away. Your laugh is bubbly and timely, your voice inviting and sexy.

Getting to know you.

I love the romantic mystery of you. I’m collecting puzzle pieces, putting them together to discover the bigger picture of you. While at first everything about you is totally new, it’s likely that we will discover things about each other we don’t like—even things that are deal breakers. Luckily you don’t smoke and you like to work out.

We need to get to know each other slowly, to savor this early step, like sucking on a hard candy that yields ever so little lemony flavor for a long time. This isn’t a horse race, or somewhere to get to.

We have all the time in the world, you can’t hurry love, and you shouldn’t hurry sex, commitment or affection either.

Slow down, enjoy each smile, laugh, let mystery prevail and let love do the work of connecting us as only love can.

The art of flirting.

The art of flirting can be described as almost but not quite. It is reaching an arm around someone new, but not quite touching. It is moving in for a kiss so slowly that we meet new aspects of both them and us in the process. Flirting is intrinsically mind blowing and heart opening. It is soft, open and exciting.

Move a little closer than you dare, then move away. Sometimes speak of what we do before we do it, other times let our fingers, lips or toes lead the way into new terrain.

Bodies love to flirt while minds shiver and shake in fear at the prospect. It’s because minds want to know, while bodies seek sensation. Feel each other from three feet away, then two feet away. Ponder what a lover might let us do, but there is no hurry to do it. Above all fan the embers of new love just enough that flame breaks out, then let it die back down again. Get carried away, but then stop, relax, and enjoy what is feels like to be present, in love, and so soft.

The same mind that urges us not to approach someone in the tea shop, mall or boardwalk now wants us to have sex, get intimate and structure a commitment as quickly as possible. It wants us to move too fast: not enjoying the ride. Mind is all about destinations while bodies savor the journey.

Love, and all its aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and relatives don’t succumb to an immature, grabby, possessive mind. But they swoon, shine, hang round and endorse sensations and the pleasure of each moment.

When it’s time for sex.

Most couples, singles and rabbits have sex way too soon. Long before they have totally enjoyed getting to know each other, touch each other and dance together.

And way too often, sex is the end of what might have been a wonderful relationship. When we rush into it, we are having sex with a stranger. Neither our mind or body like that: because sex is an intimate act that is best enjoyed in a safe space. An unknown space isn’t safe.

Sex too soon ruins more relationships than waiting ever will.

When we have explored getting to know each other, flirting together and dancing together then sex is the natural, organic thing to do. Most fellows experience a drop in interest after sex. This isn’t a surprise since, from the perspective of evolution, they have planted their seed. Most women experience sex as a commitment to a longer term connection. This disconnect, in the presence of not knowing each other well is enough to generate awkward silences, premature familiarity and embarrassment. But if we wait, if we deepen our connection, coordinate our pulses and actions then, when the time to have sex comes, it enhances our connection.

It improves our prospects and confirms us as a romantic couple living in wonderland.

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Author: Jerry Stocking

Image: Wikicommons

Editor: Travis May