Here in this particular matchmaking community we have developed a certain style of dating, a way of living life as single people who are engaging and interacting with each other.
Each person here in our personal matchmaking community shares one common value – LOVE, and we practice the art of loving throughout our dating journey.
We recognize that we are social creatures and that we need each other in order to be fulfilled, joyous and fully expressed in life. We are united in our desire to have one primary partnership, a romantic relationship with one other carefully chosen person. And while we know that none of us is promised this one special romantic relationship, we have hope and faith that true love between two people does exist and can exist for each of us. How we keep that hope and faith alive and indeed how we better enable the very possibility for that one coveted romantic partnership to happen for ourselves is… we participate in this community with a shared set of values, beliefs and ways of behaving and interacting with each other. In so doing, we are setting ourselves up for success, not only in our dating lives, but in all of our relationships.
We keep our promises. Once two people have said Yes to a first date together, in this community, we follow through by working cooperatively with each other and with the matchmaking team to set the time and place for the first date. We keep the date. We show up for each other.
We give each other a loving chance. We practice the art of looking for and noticing what’s right in each other, for what’s lovely and worthy of note. In our post-date feedback with our matchmakers, we communicate courageously, to share what we appreciate about this person, whether we are inspired to pursue a second date or not. And when in doubt, we say Yes to a second meeting, to explore, to contribute to each other, and to enrich each other’s lives, to see what beauty we might create together.
We communicate compassionately with each other. The reality of modern day dating is that the vast majority of the possible couplings we explore end up being a fleeting, one-time meeting. This is a nice way of saying that most of our first dates “don’t work out” – but here in our community, a first date is never a waste of time, effort or financial resources, because with each other, in each of the encounters we have together, we are practicing the art of loving, stretching and strengthening our “love muscles” in preparation for the one relationship that will endure, that can endure – why? Because we have been practicing loving. We recognize that the better we are at loving each other, all along the dating journey, the more likely it will be that we find ourselves in a relationship that is worth perpetuating.
Love is both the chicken and the egg, here in our dating community. Love comes first and second. We are open, honest, thoughtful and kind when we say Hello to each other and also when we choose to say See Ya Later – when we say to each other that our dating journey is not yet complete and that there are other possibilities ahead to explore. We are warm and friendly, we wish each other well and we part in the spirit of friendship. We don’t burn our bridges.
As a cherished elder once shared with me, “We should always be nice to the people we date; we never know who their friends might be…”
