RE-BOUND

rebound: to spring back on or as if on collision or impact with another body
b : to recover from setback or frustration

I've been having this circular conversation with a few folks lately. Really, this conversation started back in October. I was sitting in my backyard with my old boyfriend, Noah, who is still one of my best friends. He had just moved back to town, and I was filling him in on all that was going on. Here I am, fresh from the barn in my boots and jeans, telling him about the ins and outs of my heart. I remember being surprised that when I talked about the pain, no tears were coming, because I was still hurting from it all. He was, as always, rational to the point of flaw - he caught himself talking about the neurology involved in my emotions, and we had a good laugh as he realized out loud that I was speaking emotionally, and deserved an emotional response. I asked him, then, when it would be acceptable to become involved with someone else.

"Your relationship is already over," he said, "the time is now."

But I knew he was wrong. I was still processing the pain of rejection and the elements of un-doing in my marriage. We talked about this often, argued about it, discussed it across Facebook chats and dinners out. He debated his side well, but kept his emotional distance from me (smart man). I think we both knew where I was going with it, during this time. He was sensitive to my vulnerability, and I was trying not to make him my crutch. I needed something, and he kept trying to suggest that the door was open for me to seek it out there, but I knew in my heart that to do that now would be selfish and to no good end.

I felt I needed to be sexually validated by someone outside the relationship, to overcome some of the issues in the marriage (you're so ugly no man would ever want you), and also had this strong desire to be emotionally attached to someone else (nobody loves you, nobody will ever love you, because you aren't worth loving). I wanted to prove that this man who hurt me was wrong about me, needed to prove to myself that it was possible to have what I wanted. I needed those words to go away in my head and be replaced with positive validation, and during this time, I keep seeking that outside myself.

One night during this time, say in November, we went out all night downtown with some friends. That was a crazy random night with mysterious connections, but the best part of all was meeting up with Raj, a friend I made a couple of years ago. Raj is a magic man, sagacious and suave. This night out, we sat in the corner of a greek cafe and Raj and I had a long talk...about Truth, Beauty...and Sex...fabulous subjects. Raj touches me deeply on some intellectual level, but this night he also gave me verbal validation for my attractiveness, which helped me feel better. That was a strange night of walking around Montrose with beers and bands and goth kids, and bar hopping and Denise and her sister drunk at their apartment, and then the long drive home with him, with Noah. The night ended in the early hours of morning, with my headlights shining on the street and he and I talking...there was some emotional context to the evening, another fight I was having with my husband, another decision to run away from. I was crying about it, and of course he let me cry on his shoulder. We have grand affection for each other as friends, and that night he stroked my hair and told me he loved me forever and ever, giving me the emotional validation I needed without the hint of sex. I remember asking him that night, "But why? What makes me worth loving?" Tell me, my old friend.

"Because you are a good person, and you never give up. You keep fighting."

********************************************************************
I was struggling with the desire to seek validation without involving someone else, because the time wasn't right. I needed to smooth over the scars and start healing, but from the inside. Mari gave me a number to the hotline, and I had called and talked to some girl, who told me I needed to find that validation inside myself. It's pretty simple, really. No, really, it was a struggle, but something I needed to focus on, on finding the ways to feel good from the inside out. It was work, work on self, work on image, always working, working, working. It was a time of metamorphosis, and I was in the chrysalis stage. My cocoon was blasting Britney. I was focusing on getting in touch with my inner diva, working on achieving self validation for the self's sake. I needed my soul to bounce back before I could be complete enough to seek what the heart desires.

During this time, I was going through the Bargaining stage. The Man and I were trying to work it out. It was an earnest effort on my part, but it was causing me huge anxiety. I talked to Noah about it, and to Raj. They both supported this effort, because they've both had significant relationships hit the dust, and wished their women would have tried harder. They also understood the flip side of the coin.
There were temptations in there, but I was resisting. The Dirty Mexican was working overtime. "You're like a volcano waiting to explode," he said, "and I want to be there when it happens..." Some days I considered. The "no" turned into a "maybe". It wasn't the full picture, though. His attraction was somewhat gratifying but only part of the picture, like Noah's platonic love and our affection for each other. Still I wanted to keep people out of the wake of my broken heart.

And then, the coin flipped. The string broke. It was a fragile marriage, under too much strain. C-r-a-c-k. It didn't end for the traumatic reasons, but for the minor ones in the end....but that's okay. All that time gave me a chance to work through the stages of grief, to process the relationship, so that when the end came, it was with the sigh of relief. Thank God that's over, now let's have some peace tonight....
And then the conversations started. People kept wanting to warn me about the rebound factor. Mostly, though, these were people who didn't know my history or my thinking process. My girlfriends never asked these questions, they knew I had been processing, and waiting.
Noah and I talked about the rebound factor. "See, the thing is, " he said, "Rebound is for people who haven't processed their old relationship, and who get involved without thinking things through. You've already done all that processing. You've been thinking this through the whole way, and examining all the aspects. It doesn't apply."
But still, the question sits there, so I take a look to see if it truly doesn't apply. I find this quiz, this silly quiz that was really more for people half my age, but here's my results:

Your score is 10. Congratulations! You're really ready to start something new with somebody new. Good for you! The danger zone has been crossed and you've made it to the other side a stronger person. You've learned from your mistakes and you've let go of a relationship that wasn't working in favor of finding something better. Well done! Life is to short to dwell on the past... welcome to your future!

Sometimes I talk to Raj during my lunch break on messenger chat. Last time we talked, he wanted to know, basically, if I had acted on my urges to find that validation outside myself. His surprised reaction was amusing. The thing is, though, once I came out on the other side, I realized I had found the validation inside myself, and it was that transformation that made me able to be comfortable with the idea of waiting for the right person, and the right time.
Everyone has their opinion, but nobody knows me more than I do. Alicia and I talk about this one day over a random beer in the feed room. She's seen me suffer and try to pull myself around, and she is cautioning me, in almost the same words as the fortune teller. Go slow...but go.....Alicia's thoughts run all jumbled and in no seeming semblance, but this day she tells me something profound that I listen to intently.

"You've been walking down this hallway, closing the windows, shutting the doors, walking in darkness. It's time to open them back up, let the light back in. You have to walk back down that hallway and open up all those parts of yourself that you shut down to keep the pain out. He can be a part of that, but not all of it. This is still your journey, this is for you, and I want it for you."
So do I, Alicia.

Some of us still bounce back.

Best Western Adventures

Series 12

RAINBOWS AND BUTTERFLIES

"It can't always be rainbows and butterflies," he says
"But can't it sometimes be?", my reply

Our unending chorus

This day, a couples adventure
Destination: At the End of the Rainbow
A geocache at another mining area
It's lunchtime at the hay fields
Suicidal butterflies dive in droves
Flinging themselves
Head first into the front of car
Drive past Wild Plum Winery
Down highway
Past swathers at rest
Bales of hay dotting fields
Along shores of Goose Lake
To the Davis Creek Store
Hmm, been here before
Many times this week
To get useless map and permit
Backtrack along Goose Lake
Past tractors and grass fed cows
To dirt highway to mines
Pass campground
Forest Service truck
Miles up old dirt roads
Twists and turns
Up the mountain
Bumpy, rocky roads
Littered with obsidian
Sharp gleaming black shards
Falling logs, danger
Elusive Rainbow Mines
Elusive wooden signs
No road is the right road
We can't make it, find our way
Series of dead ends and roadblocks
We give up, head back down
Can't get there from here,
Not with the sun in our eyes
Hunger in our bellies
Back down dirt highway
Flying down blacktop
With so many suicidal butterflies
Hitting the dash
Carelessly careening
Headlong into their demise

The Beautiful Mystery


"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher.
"Everything is meaningless!"
Ecclesiastes 12:8

This is both the opening sentence and the closing sentence of the book of Ecclesiastes. In it, the narrator, "The Teacher", also believed to be King Solomon, expands on the wisdom he has gained through experience in his life.

King Solomon was an ancient king who ruled a united Israel, perhaps the last one to do so. He is credited with writing a few books of the Bible, or perhaps inspiring them. One of the books credited to him is the Song of Songs, which is a story of erotic love. There is much debate over the meaning of this song, over whether it is an allergory of God's love, or a literal story of married love. Some teach that the ideas presented in the Song of Songs represents what God wants from us in terms of courtship and intimate love, his guidelines for us. There is also an interpretation that it was a story to be acted out, with three main characters; the woman, who is perhaps the Shulammite woman, The Sheperd, and King Solomon. However you attribute it to, the book is a story of love.

As I sat in Bible Study to begin the lesson on what the Songs of Solomon can teach us about how to find and keep lasting love, I was reading my preface to the chapter in my Life Application Study Bible. I was struck by a sentence describing King Solomon.

"King Solomon probably wrote this 'song'in his youth, before being overtaken by his own obsession with women, sex, and pleasure."

I wonder, then, how we can use this book to explain the way God wants us to love, when obviously this is a story of a love that comes to an end. How can one love so intensely another, as the pages describe, and drop it for such selfish pursuits? What does that say about lasting love?


These are the question I ask myself, as I look on my best friend. How can something seem so perfect and turn out not to be? And I wonder if it makes me question the foundation of faith in love. We've known the relationships that were built to last come crumbling down. Does it make us stop believing? How does it affect our faith?


In the book Misquoting Jesus, the Story behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart Ehrman, the author explains the history of the New Testament and how it was changed over the ages. This is from the perspective of a biblical scholar who has devoted his life to the study of this issue. At one point in the book, the author details information about various scholars who have spoken up about the variations of the Bible over the years. During the sixteenth and seventeeth century, there were those who would like to discourage this kind of textual criticism, because of the fear that this might cause people to lose their faith in the Bible.


As I was reading this book, I questioned if it changed by own faith, much as I questioned my faith in love in light of the dissolution I see around me. I find my heart filled with questions, and I turn to scripture to examine what else has been "divinely inspired" along these lines.

I want to know what happened to King Solomon and his lady. In Song of Songs, 2:15, he speaks so sweetly to her, "How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves." How is it that this same Solomon was the one who also was reported to have 700 wives and 300 concubines? If he could love this true, why was it not a faithful one?

When I search for the traces of Solomon's affair, I find countless explanations for the different theories on what is happening in this book, and what it means, but never any vestages of a failed relationship with the jewish maiden he loved. Where did his love go, how does love like this just end?It seems like everyone has an interpretation, and which one of those is the true meaning?

What I do find, though, is the hint of experience, the hint of wisdom, the hint of repentance. It came from one of the other chapters accredited to Solomon, the book of Ecclesiastes. It is said that Solomon wrote Ecclesiates at the end of his reign, when he was sixty years old. The legend has it that Solomon was allowed to ask God for whatever he wanted, and what he asked for was wisdom, although he was already considered to be very wise.

I want Ecclesiastes to tell me the meaning, to answer the questions that have been raised in my heart from the fragility of the human bond; the incogruency that lies somewhere between the love story of a king and a maiden, and his subsequent descent into indulgence, between the perfectly matched personalities and the eternal seperation, between the sheets of desire and the fabric of the human soul.

So what can be concluded by of all this wisdom? In Ecclesiastes, that is what Solomon is thought to be relating; however, the overriding theme seems to be a lack of a defined conclusion.

All this I tested by wisdom and I said,

"I was determined to be wise -

but this was beyond me.

Whatever wisdom may be,

it is far off and most profound-

Who can discover it?

So I turned my mind to understand,

to investigate and to search out wisom and the scheme of things

and to understand the stupidity of wickedness

and the madness of folly"

Ecc 7:23-25

This only I have found:

God made man upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes."

Ecc 7:29

The work emphatically proclaims all the actions of man to be inherently "vain", "futile", "empty", or "meaningless," depending on translation, as the lives of both wise and foolish men end in death. While "the teacher"clearly promotes wisdom as a means for a well-lived earthly life, he is unable to ascribe eternal meaning to it. In light of this perceived senselessness, the preacher suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life, such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one's wife and work, which are gifts from the hand of God.

According to some religious traditions, the point of Ecclesiates is to state that all is futile under the sun. One should therefore ignore physical pleasures and put all one's efforts towards that which is above the Sun, i.e. "God".

I think about John Mill, and his edition of the Greek New Testament with its notation of thirty thousand variants, and how now scholars believe there may be upwards of three hundred thousand variants. I think about how the latest research points to the fact that the book of Ecclesiastes was thought to be written between the second and third century BCE and not in fact the seven hundred years or so prior when King Solomon was still alive. It is commonly believed, in fact, among religious scholars that this book was not written by Solomon at all, but acredited to him to give it more credibility, and it was really written during a time when the Greek Epicurean viewpoint was prevalent.

So what kind of truth can we really obtain from this, really? When truth is only relative to experience and perspective, how do you define it? If the answers cannot be found or the source can not be trusted, how can we determine the answers, and have any faith in them?

My friend Lorraine sits next to me at a baby shower. I remember her husband is a Lutheran minister, and I ask her her interpretation of Song of Songs, of Ecclesiastes, of what the Bible is telling us of love when all we can see are things that were not the answers. This is what she tells me,

"You're looking for a perfect thing in an imperfect world."

I wonder how many of us that could apply to. She goes on to explain that there was only one perfect person, and he was not even really a person, but a divine one. Humans are flawed, every one of us, she tells me. We are all, at best, only human. Searching for perfection in dating relationships, in marriage partners, in even the best of spouses is a futile enterprise, and in the end we are only disillusioned if we expect to see that perfection there.

She also reminds me of the school of thought that the Bible, although "divinely inspired," is not considered to be the "unerring Word of God", which I agree with as well. That is my answer for why reading Ehrman's book does not shake my faith in God. My belief in God has nothing to do with my belief in the teachings of scripture. I accept that the Bible is not a perfect or accurate representation of the knowledge God wants to impart to the world.


My belief in lasting love, likewise, should not be solely based on the experience of the disillusionment I see around me, in the foolishness of one who refuses to see what love really is. Like the New Testament, it is based on interpretation. With all these various interpretations, the only truth becomes the one inside of you.

I am still not satisfied with that answer, though, because how can that be absolute?


I go to worship to seek the answers, only to be disappointed that the scripture reading was about something totally different. I put it out of my mind, then, these questions, and concentrated on the lessons of the day. After Communion, I sat in my pew, concentrating on the cross in front of me until it becomes the only thing I see, a reminder of the Christ who gave up his body to us so that we, sinners, with all our many schemes, can be absolved of sin. The more I open my heart, the more I feel it filled by the Holy Spirit, and that is when it comes to me.

Faith is not something you know or decide from reading a book; faith is something you feel. My questions surrounding my faith dissolve as I feel the warmth of the love of Jesus in my heart. My faith in love need not change based on the foolishness of a man. Truth is individual, based on perception, experience, emotion. The answers of which we seek lie within ourselves, if we simply open our hearts. If we search our hearts, will we find that our faith is amiss because of the imperfection of men, or intact because there are those who have shown us what it is to truly love another, to truly believe?
So I am not sure, in the end, if I have some great meaning to give to you, my friend, that is based out of my faith and can answer all the questions you have. All I have is the line from John 14:27 that settled my own heart in church today.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you."

I hope you are able to find the same peace that I was, and be able to look past the imperfections, the incongruencies, the inconsistencies, and find only faith and love left in your heart.

Sources:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes


http://jeru.huji.ac.il/eb32s.htm

The Muddy Waters of Reflection
I was thinking this morning about my "romantic landscape", a favorite place for me to go, and I had some realizations, remembered some details I had forgotten about.
I had started out thinking about what God wants from us, and so I am not really sure how I ended up thinking about the Top Five Loves of My Life, but there I was. I think about the Top Five a lot, perhaps in the context of trying to understand how I got to where I am romantically.
Today I was thinking about the second and fourth "loves of my life". For reference, I will just call them "N" and "R". I had gotten to the point in my relationship with both of them where a decision had to be made about where it was going. You know, that precipice that we reach in serious, long term relationships where you have to decide whether this love that you have is going to lead you to marriage.
I suppose I was thinking about this because part of my mind was remembering an affectionate conversation I had with "N" last week. We have managed to stay friends over the years, because those things we had in common we still have, and then some. It is easy to stay friends with him because neither of us allows the past to be an issue in our friendship. Some people might have issues with our friendship, because there are people out there who think having this kind of relationship with an ex is dangerous, and even sometimes I have to draw boundaries with certain people. He is never a concern, not even for my husband, who encourages me to hang out with him, sometimes even pushing me out the door or to the phone to call him. He is not the least bit threatened by my relationship with "N", and all who know "N" understand why. "N" is just not the kind of guy who would ever make a pass for another man's woman.
Anyway, "N" and I were talking about the topic we dance around and never really discuss, which is our affection for each other. We had this moment where we were both being honest and open with each other, each of us saying "I will always love you" to each other. It was not like "so let's run off together", it was more like an open admission of the things we feel in our hearts, like that we will always remember that we had a great and powerful love, and even if our relationship became "something dishonest", as he said, underneath it all, there was always a great friendship, a great affinity for each other, and we will always have those feelings, and still both continue to think of each other as one of our best friends, as a long chapter in our respective lives, as a fond memory. In a way, it is poetic justice, because it has become like the song that we swore would always be ours: "Think of me, think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye/Remember me, once in a while, please promise that you'll try".
So that conversation was wrapped around another common thought of mine, that I could see myself with him in marriage, that we would actually probably have a better marriage than the one I have now.
That is kind of the frequent "romantic landscape" theme - hold each of them up, compare, imagine, how each relationship would have panned out in the end, and which of them might have held the most promise of happiness.
So then, why, you have to ask, why didn't I marry him, when it came down to it? Ah, back in the day, I had a list of a dozen reasons. After the years went by, I forgot those reasons, and only had one left, the one that keeps the boundary intact between us, the reason I can be friends with him - a sexual attraction issue. Oh sure, there was a time where I lusted for him, and there was a time where we fulfilled each other in that fashion. Even when it was supposed to be over, when we knew it was over, we still made love to each other frequently. We couldn't really ever stay out of each other's beds, even when we were committed to someone else. So it seems really strange to say that is the reason we did not stay together, and will not be together. There was a point, though, where I realized that he could never really satisfy me in that direction because of some preference issues, and maybe that was the reason I could never stay faithful to him, and so the line was drawn and so the line has stayed.
Today, though, in thinking about it, and comparing him to "R", and thinking about the time in my life where I was deciding between them and choose neither, I remembered some of the other reasons why I could not marry him. Ironically, I don't think they have anything to do with the original "Dozen Reasons". They have more to do with the actual ability to live with someone in a partnership.
He was a mess. Literally and figuratively. He came home at night and threw his dirty clothes in a heap on the floor, and in the morning he grabbed something off the heap and put it on. He and many others smoked in his room, ashing in soda cans, and sometimes they ashed in the one you were drinking and nobody realized until you got a mouthful. He was emotionally and mentally unstable. He couldn't hold down a job. He had some issues, and those who know him know why and sure it is a good reason, for a while at least, but it went on for way too long. He was unreliable. He would say he would meet you somewhere at some time and never show. He was always at least two hours late. He was a terrible person to be in a long distance relationship with, because you could never find him. No one ever knew where he was, or if they told you where they thought he was, it was always another reason to worry. He was in and out of mental hospitals, in and out of people's lives, including maybe some other women, in and out of school, in and out of his parent's house. In thinking back on it, it was a wonder we lasted as long as we did. Maybe that is a testament to how much we truly cared. He was a jellyfish, floating around life with no real ambition, direction, no plan for the future. How can you plan a future with someone who doesn't have a dream of it themselves? How can you know if your goals are compatible if they don't have any?
I always believed my relationship with "R" was reactionary. It was the complete opposite, and he was 180 degrees from "N". He was a good man. He was hard working, ambitious, reliable, dependable. We could have the same kind of intelligent conversations I had with "N", but we also had more passion, and he suited my preferences in the bedroom much better. He was like the man in all those romance novels; chivalrous, guarded but loyal once you got to his heart, noble, romantic, handsome. So why, you might ask, would someone give that up, or why would someone look at that one and say, "Oh, but I never would have been happy with that one"? Many women would have loved to be married to that man, I feel sure. Not me, though. When it came down to it, I knew I couldn't do it, could not marry him, because he did not possess the spirit of acceptance. He had high standards. I don't like to be boxed in. I have a great need for acceptance, and to live a life without judgement, without reservations. Acceptance is a double-edged sword, this I know, and maybe his high standards would have propelled me to be the best I could be. However, I would always be worried about losing his favor because of some deficiency, and I don't think I could live like that.
So, the question that always remains is, upon the retrospective romantic reminiscing, would I really have been better off with any of these men? Is the solution better than the problems?
All these years of thinking about it, and really no clear answers.

Senses

I've been doing some thinking about compatability between people, and I have decided that sense of humor is overrated. Not that I don't think it is important, but I find it odd that it shows up on the top five things both men and women are seeking in a mate, and it is the only "sense of" that shows up. I think there are other "senses" people can have that might actually be more beneficial in the long term, or maybe more suited for individuals as opposed to the masses. I am speaking from my personal experience, which I think is the starting point for most people when deciding whether or not they agree with something.
In my experience, I have decided sense of humor is not on my top five list of qualities I would seek in a long term mate. I would rate sense of adventure higher, or even sense of compassion. Why don't those "senses" come up on a list?
Here are some that I think are left out when determining compatability, some "senses" people may possess along a spectrum:

Sense of Self Sense of Purpose Sense of Adventure
Sense of Wonder Sense of Compassion Sense of Entitlement
Sense of Direction Sense of Community Sense of Security

I think it would be interesting to rate the important of these to you along a spectrum, and try to match with someone who also shares some of these same qualities. But then you get into the question of whether it is better to be similiar or complementary. When breeding animals, you want to seek mates that share the good features and complement each other on the weaknesses.
If I have a sense of humor deficiency (like some say that I do - haha - I disagree becasue I happen to find myself hilarious, and if you can laugh at yourself, I would tend to think you have a sense of humor), is it better to be paired with someone who has a greater sense of humor, so they can lighten you up? I think it would depend on how much value that other person places on sense of humor in a mate.
There are also other "senses" in which the description comes first, such as "people sense", "common sense", "horse sense", "animal sense". These could also be important.
If I had my life to do over again, I would spend much more time comtemplating compatability before choosing a mate, and then I would want to make my choice based on reason, more than emotion. In my life so far, it seems I made an emotive decision and then just hoped for the best. Emotion versus reason...it sounds like some Plato inspired rambling, the "old quarrel between philosophy and poetry".
Welcome to my dichotomy.

Everything I Need To Know About Relationships,I Learned From Dr Phil

1) Accept Responsiblity
2) Own Actions
3) Get Real
4) Purposeful Communication
5) Modeling Success
6) Have Integrity
7) Family Matters
8) Become Proactive
9) Be Authentic
10) Humor Helps

Explanations forthcoming.

I am working out this new theory in my mind about relationships. Some of the psychology out there today in regards to relationships suggests that we have a subconscious tendency to act like our same sex parent in the constucts of a marriage (or long-term partnership). Women will inadvertently try to recreate their mother's role in a marriage, and men will act like their fathers. Your parents provide the models for the biggest role in your life. If you think about it, in terms of "nature versus nurture", learning how to behave in a relationship towards the opposite sex is a huge part of our environment as a child. This remains true whether your parental unit stayed intact or not, and without a conscious effort to not act like your same sex parent (for instance, if you are aware enough to recognize the way your same sex parent acted and made a deliberate choice not to behave that way due to the consequences of those actions), one naturally slides into the role that the same sex parent modeled to them.
So supposing that it is true, that over time in a relationship, women tend to model the behavior of their mother and men model the behavior of their father, then my theory is in order to fully determine compatability with another person, you need to determine if that person's same sex parent would have gotten along with, or been able to meet the needs of, your same sex parent. Simply put, if you are a woman, you would want to introduce your mother to his father, and if you can assess that they would have made a good combination, you have a high chance of making it work between you.
A man learns how to love a woman from watching his father love women. In a stable marriage, he would learn how to treat his wife from how his father treats his mother. If the parental unit dissolved and his father loved a series of women, or perhaps none at all, a man learns from that as well. When he becomes mature, he can make the conscious decision to not act like his father, but without assessing this and making this choice, he subconsciously displays the learned behavior in relationship to how he treats a woman. So single women, I advise you to educate yourself about the father of the man you are seeing to determine what kind of relationship influence he provided, and also ask the man you are seeing how he felt about the way his father treated women, to determine if he has thought it through and made any decision about whether it was something to aspire to or not.
Whether we want them to or not, our parents set the relationship stage for us. If you want to determine how the play is going to turn out, analyze the role that each same sex parent played on that stage. Then choose your mate carefully with this in mind.
I picture asking my mother to dance with his father, and then watching to see if they laugh together.