The Wonders of Discovery
Santa Barbara, California, USA, February 3rd, 2014
Salaroche


You meet a whole lot of people across a large span of time and what do you get? A whole gamut of different characters, physiognomies, levels of chemistry, points of view, levels of mutual attraction, levels of intelligence, etc. Occasionally, though, you meet someone special and, once in a blue moon, you get to meet somebody really special.

Once the latter happens it’s partially up to you to determine the events that follow. I know this because it was only halfway up to me to determine whether my relationship with Nadya would unfold any further or would simply stall at the heights where we left it when we first met.

But that’s the way it should ideally be, no? Couples should pull forward together with equal strength and determination, regardless of the levels of uncertainty they may experience during the first steps they take together. Love at first sight may sometimes come easy, particularly when the circumstances are favorable to it, but whatever comes after that first encounter may not be as easy as one would like.

For example, guy meets girl while they’re both on holydays in a distant tropical land. Guy likes girl and girl likes guy with equal intensity almost from the get go so that they end up frolicking passionately under the covers on the very first night. The following couple of days the attraction and the passion continue, this time with some additional tones of intimacy of the knowing kind.

But then they both have to go back home or continue on their holyday journeys, so they have to part ways. They both live in countries far away from each other so, what happens next? Is that the end of the story? Well, that will depend on how badly each of them needs to see the other. Usually, one of them happens to have more of a chance to go visit the other, so the next step usually depends on the quality and the quantity of exchanges they may have over the phone and over the internet.

Once it is clear that the attraction was not just a question of one night stands, it may all be just a matter of sheer drive for one of them to take the risk of going to see the other. And I say “risk” because it is indeed a risk to go see someone you have only known for a few days while vacationing in a foreign country; the environment will be different and the person who is making the visit will be a stranger in the other’s home turf.

Who might be willing to take such risk and why? Someone who really wants to love somebody else would take it and would do it in an effort to satisfy an intense desire for self-fulfillment. There is a certain self-actualization that is only attained in mating with the appropriate partner, and an appropriate partner is one who shares the same levels of attraction and satisfaction with the other. That is, an appropriate partner is someone who draws from the relationship as much as they need, while giving to the other as much as the other needs.

But, how do we know that we have found the appropriate partner for us? That is practically impossible to know beforehand. All we can know at the start is that we have found somebody very special to us; the rest is a question of playing the game of trust: “I trust you, you trust me”. Communication, therefore, is utterly important at the early stages of a relationship.

For my part, after long and repeated exchanges over the phone and over the Internet, I have decided to tackle the matter head on and I’m catching a plane to St. Petersburg, Russia, this coming Wednesday, February 5th.

But, what about the risk? Well, after all is said and done, it is quite clear to me that I wasn’t born to be sedentary.

Salaroche