I have a rather unusual take on loneliness. I find it precious and encourage people to form a relationship with their experience of loneliness. This guarantees that we don’t throw our loneliness at partners or potential partners & expect them to look after it or entertain us to distract us from it. This is the sure way to scare anyone off, even someone who really cares about us. Loneliness comes out of time spent alone; this can be short periods or longer periods. The point where it becomes loneliness is different for all of us. Some of us need large amounts of time alone and smaller in company with others. Others like less time alone, maybe no time at all. Then there are times in our lives when we need more time alone due to circumstances and also other times less time due to other circumstances.

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intimate is not just women’s underwear, it is the subtle foundation of any good relationship. The word intimate is defined in the dictionary as pertaining to the inmost character of a thing; fundamental. The word comes from the Latin intimatus “make known, announce, impress,” and intimus “inmost”. It all sounds pretty intense doesn’t it but also so… attractive to be seen by another & accepted, let alone loved! Before moving on from the intimate apparel theme, thought you might enjoy this great photo from Flickr.

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I’ve been reading the book On Beauty by Zadie Smith and am in the midst of a conflict between the married couple who are central to the plot. They are fighting because he had an affair and he says ‘It’s true that men“ they respond to beauty…. it doesn’t end for them, this. this concern with beauty as a physical actuality in the world and that’s clearly imprisoning and it infantilizes. but it’s true and.. I don’t know how else to explain what 

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I am fascinated with the shift when we meet people for real, with whom we originally connected with virtually. By virtual, I include the phone along with the web. Of course this is what the online dating sites have been struggling with for years – how to make that shift less traumatic and disappointing? I have found from past experiences myself, that a lot of interest and excitement can be generated in connecting with certain people online and on the phone. However when we meet, there is a shift to another level that has not been addressed virtually. Of course the odds are stacked against these levels matching the real, live experience of another or at the very least, offering real potential of connection. If virtual operates through the mind, then we have a lot to catch up with on other levels, when we meeting for real. Often real-ationships have to be reworked from the virtual or in some cases abandoned altogether.

The word virtual used to mean “influencing by physical virtues or capabilities,” from M.L. virtualis, from L. virtus “excellence, potency, efficacy,” lit. “manliness, manhood”. The meaning of “being something in essence or fact, though not in name” is first recorded 1654, probably via sense of “capable of producing a certain effect” (1432). Computer sense of “not physically existing but made to appear by software” is attested from 1959.
The word real however seems to have always meant “relating to things” (esp. property), from O.Fr. reel, from L.L. realisres “matter, thing,” of unknown origin. Meaning “genuine” is recorded from 1559; that of “actually existing” is attested from 1597; sense of “unaffected, no-nonsense” is from 1847. “actual,” from L.

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