Dating Tip: Why You Need To Talk About Sex

Oh dear, I'm mentioning sex again, even though I don't want to, but I feel I have to...

You see, my recent dating adventure has made me think.

I have realised that often the main reason, why relationships fail in their early stages is because people don't talk about their sexual preferences before they jump into bed together.

Now, I recently met this really nice guy, and we got on so well together. We went for meals, for walks in the countryside, on a night out...we held hands...and then he asked:

"What do you like in bed?"

I responded with an embarrassed giggle despite my age, but I did manage to come up with some suggestions on how he could make me happy in bed.

And then it was his turn to tell me...

Saying that I was disappointed would be an understatement.

Needless to say we realised that despite enjoying each other's company on a social level, we were sexually incompatible.

*Sigh*

At least I found out before anything else happened, and I learned a useful lesson in the process.

Until this moment, I had naively assumed that when you are attracted to each other and get on well together, everything will work fine in the bedroom department, too.

Wrong.

It might be embarrassing, strange or awkward, but it is important to talk about sex with your date before it happens, if you feel it's going into that direction.

Especially women need to overcome their shyness and be open and frank about it, otherwise they will just get hurt.

It's all well and good enjoying each other's company, but sexual compatibility is equally important, otherwise the relationship won't last long.

So, here's my advice:

find out about what the other likes in bed before you let them close. This way you save yourself a lot of heartache.

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Embracing A New Era - Sex and The Menopause

Until I turned 50 earlier this year and experienced the first signs of the menopause, I realised that women are still having to deal with stigma and prejudice when they approach their midlife years.

In a dating forum I once noticed a discussion between men, who agreed not to date women, who were currently going through the menopause, because 'they could be moody and unpredictable'.

When you google the term 'menopause', you will notice that most links relate to health issues, mental disorders and sexual dysfunction.

Menopause is still regarded first and foremost as a disease rather than a new life phase that will offer new possibilities and opportunities.

There isn't much about the positive aspects of the menopause, and that indeed you can still have a great sex life despite falling oestrogen levels. Discover vaginal moisturisers (the hormone free varieties), and painful sex will become a thing of the past.

In your later years, you can even become a best-selling and prolific novelist like Mary Wesley, who in her seventies gave us the beautiful and timeless Camomile Lawn and A Sensible Life.

Above all, it's about mindset. Reject words and phrases like can't, lost youth, too old, over the hill, past it etc. You can make bold fashion statements, be a sex goddess or achieve business success even when you're well past 50.

Honestly, you can.

Nowadays there is no longer any reason whatsoever to become invisible, lose your passion or turn into an old hag of the fairytale variety.

And if you wonder, what to look forward to when you've reached the menopause, then read this inspirational article.

A New Direction - Solitude

“I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. 

In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with, because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. 

I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." 
I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. 

You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" 

Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. 

Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!”
- Charles Bukowski

A few months ago I met a man just like Charles Bukowski. We went on a few dates together, but nothing more developed, until I reached crisis point and felt the urge to contact him.

I don't know why I chose him to help me lift myself up again, but I'm glad I did.

So far, he has been the only one, who didn't pounce on me, pursued me, lied to me and made empty promises to win me over. He has never - and I know he won't ever - treat me like a conquest. 

I simply feel safe with him as a friend.

Within only a short time, he changed my perception and attitude towards solitude and being consciously single rather than throwing myself into doomed love affairs. 

For the first time after two years of drifting, I'm feeling quite content.

The realisation that you need to be entirely happy on your own, being your own best friend and loving every minute of it can only come from within. You need to feel it rather than being told by others.

Sometimes, a special person helps you make that shift, not by telling you to do it, but by making you feel it. 

It can be just a brief encounter that changes everything, and the transformation begins...

The Wanderess

Freedom and independence go hand in hand with longing and uncertainty. 

When I feel the freedom and independence, it's exhilarating happiness.

When I feel the longing and uncertainty, it's brooding despair.

Balancing both extremes in a healing way takes all my strength and resilience, but after 20 years of stasis, it feels like an awakening.

It's like living on the edge: it's perilous, but the view is breathtaking.

Summer Love

“I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.” 

“Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, a truth which has veritably built my bones over the last few years--I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue.”

“One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.”

“The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. 

So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.”

I am currently reading: Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

And I am listening to fabulous Italian Pop like this:




"The strongest actions for a woman is to love herself, be herself and shine amongst those who never believed she could." Anon


Here's to a fabulous Summer!

Sense and Sensuality

Women have come a long way since Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and I am one of those women, who has decided to turn sensibility into sensuality.

As a child I was influenced by strong female role models in my family - my mother, paternal grandmother and aunt - who all kept advising me never to become dependent on a man and always stand on my own two feet.

Born and raised in Germany, I was lucky enough to live in a liberal household, and the 1970s women's lib movement encouraged millions of young women to live a more fulfilling life than their mothers and grandmothers did.

But of course, century-old traditions and values are hard to overturn.

Sexual liberation in the 1960s was seen as debauch and hedonistic, and even today some taboo subjects like extra-marital affairs are still met with a lot of negative judgement and condemnation.

So, despite initial free-spirited living, I opted to get married to be with the man I loved for the rest of my life.

Divorce wasn't an option for me. My parents stayed together for 47 years, until my mother died in 2001. When a distant aunt and uncle got divorced, that was frowned upon. "Why couldn't they pull themselves together?"

When the parents of one of my classmates got divorced, I felt terribly sorry for my friend. I couldn't understand, why people did that, when they once loved each other and had children together. But that was me at 13. I lived in a simple world.

Little did I know, that "for the rest of my life" can be a very long time indeed, and that people can change slowly over the years without realising.

My mother never talked to me about sex in marriage, except "Sometimes you have to do it, even if you don't feel like it." I made a mental note, that I'd never do such a thing. That of course led to the breakdown of my marriage.

During my marriage, I have tried to follow the rules and be sensible. Be faithful. Make an effort. Stick with it. Talk things through.

Still, divorce wasn't an option.

How many other couples are stuck in an unfulfilled marriage and just accept it, because sex in marriage is still a taboo subject.

How many couples admit that they have an issue, and if they do, what are they doing about it?

We were too young and ignorant to realise that despite our deep love for each other we were sexually incompatible. We didn't want to know that. We brushed it under the carpet and escaped into work, holidays, hobbies, buying houses and adopting a child.

We didn't split up, because we still got on with each other and enjoyed being together. My emotional well-being was completely depending on my husband, who was, and still is, my soulmate.

There, I said it: I was emotionally dependent on my husband.

My free-spirited personality gradually turned into a clingy and reliant shadow, and it took me twenty years to realise.

It slowly dawned on both of us that sensibility was no longer an option.

We both needed to reclaim our sensuality, but we couldn't do that together. We both had different needs and desires.

It took a great deal of courage and integrity to acknowledge our situation and act upon it.

Today we are at peace. No more pretence, no more trying. We both have different partners, but we still have love for each other.

And it works. We've found our mojo, and it feels right.

Having rediscovered and expressing my sensuality has taken me full circle. I'm the free-spirited woman I used to be in my twenties - independent, confident, passionate, liberated.

And it feels good.

Blue Moments

“There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human - in not having to be just happy or just sad - in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.”
- C. JoyBell C.

My life hasn't exactly been plain sailing in recent years. Not sure if this is a blessing or a curse.

I wonder what it would be like, if I was still living with my husband, slowly decaying in a stifling marital routine, compared to the emotional roller coaster ride of exhilarating ups and downs.

Exchanging the reassuring security and predictability of a comfort zone for an adventure into the magical realm of the unknown has come at a price.

Questions like "Is this it?" have been replaced by "What now?" and "Where do I go from here?"

I traded boredom, resentment and staleness for emotional upheaval, insecurities and doubt. But I also gained liberation, independence and authenticity along the way. It's not all bad.

I even found new love and subsequently lost it again. Unexpected and painful. I have learned quite a few lessons in love over the last three years.

Learning your life lessons; they call it "growth".  I don't think I've learned life lessons with so much awareness and mindfulness before I got to my mid forties.

Is life becoming more intense when you grow older?

Most of the time I'm a happy-go-lucky person enjoying my new found circle of friends, social life and the work I do. But then those moments of overwhelming sadness and despair overcome me.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” 
- Mahatma Gandhi

Feelings of loss, grief and anxiety. Fear of loneliness and illness and losing a loved-one. Clearly there is unfinished business I still need to resolve.

People are quick to advise taking medication, but I decline. For me it's not just a quick hollow fix, but I also feel I'd be cheating myself.

Millions of people are on anti-depressants, and while I do believe that many do need to be on them for clinical reasons, others are taking them merely to numb life.

Yes, it's so hard to feel emotional pain and discomfort. Popping pills because a lover left me, or because I still miss my husband at times....NO.

I choose to feel every aspect of my life. The good, the bad and the ugly. And I've noticed that I have become stronger. Rather than crumbling emotionally after my recent dating disaster, I felt more detached and at ease.

It's perfectly okay to experience these kinds of hiccups, getting to know the nature of people without turning it into a drama or taking it personally. Rather than mortified, I was fascinated and watched in wonder the situation unfolding in front of me.

Anti-depressants can easily become just another kind of comfort zone, and many people are lost in that medically induced Matrix.

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
- Jonathan Safran Foer

I choose to push the boundaries of my comfort zone and feel the magic happen. Slowly but surely.
Just like any other roller coaster ride, this one will also ease eventually.

“Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance.”
- Osho, Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now