With Valentine’s Day soon here, it’s time for practical advice on love and romance. In our day when TV reality shows like The Bachelor earn top ratings, and library shelves are overloaded with books on relationship building and successfully choosing life mates, everyone hopes to find gold at the end of our rainbow, and not just the pot.
Success stories range from the luck of the draw, to being in the right place at the right time, or knowing a neighbor or best friend from childhood to grow into love with. Others meet someone who sweeps them their feet (sometimes literally), or who saves their life from fire or accident or drowning. Some survive a car or airplane crash together and know they are destined to be together.
Should we team up with someone similar? Or opposite? Someone who completes us? Or mirrors us so very few adjustments are needed? Few of us are experts, but here is one tip and story worth remembering.
In church youth group, grown-ups gave tips on various life skills. My favorite was the happily married dentist who shared how he found his life mate. “I had a long list of what I wanted in a girl,” he said. “I wouldn’t date her unless she had enough of those qualities to come close, and after I got home from a date, I sat down and ticked off the boxes. I was making progress in narrowing down the field when I met Marilyn.” Here he glanced at his wife of some years. “I came home from my first date with her and threw away the list. I didn’t need it anymore, and I got serious about our relationship.” That sounds like a success story to me.
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, but think about your favorite advice to meet someone. Do all the details need to fit together just right? Or would he or she stand out in the midst of a field of rubble as if under Hollywood lights? Share the best story you know.
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