Making Love in the Home Depot Parking Lot

So I believe this week’s video is about “Making Time for Love,” and it should be coming up soon.   Having not seen it yet, I don’t know which sort of “love” we’re trying to fit more of in our lives.  Do we mean dating, if you're single?  Or, if coupled, do we mean increasing the emotional closeness and affection in our relationship?  Or are we just using “love” as a polite euphemism for “Doing It?”  Maximizing these three kinds of "love" involves totally different strategies!

As a long-married, middle-aged person, I think I'll tackle the emotional bonding stuff.  Because I have to confess, it's been a couple decades since I've dated, and finding more time to get horizontal for the physical act is frankly not all that compelling a subject anymore.  (I know, what a party pooper.)  But creating more opportunities for “love” in the more general sense—that is, affection, support, appreciation, hugs, giggles, and just plain having a blast with each other—I find that much more fun to talk about!  And the cool thing is, these kinds of activities don’t necessarily take more time, just more conscious attention.

For example, “making love in the home depot parking lot” can be as simple as a moment of hand-holding on the way to pick out paint colors, or a  “hey, did I ever tell you you look great in those shorts?”  Whereas the other kind of “making love in the home depot parking lot” can get you road rash, not to mention a ride downtown in the back of a police car.

I know in my relationship these 3 things make me feel very loved, and so I always try to keep them in mind myself:

1.  Being appreciated.  I get sincere thanks for everything I do, from “being me” to remembering to bring up extra toilet paper rolls from the basement.  Because we both do this for each other, we are almost neurotically viligant at noticing what the other person is contributing, both logistically and emotionally, to our relationship.  (“Thanks for being so patient with me when I was being such a butt-head at breakfast”).

2.  Feeling heard.  I know how boring it must be when I talk how many minutes I spent on the elliptical in the gym, or what happened last night in my dream after I found myself on stage with Lady GaGa and Groucho Marx at Carnegie Hall, only it was also a cruise ship that was sinking like in the Poseidon adventure…  Well, I never FEEL as boring as I am, because my spouse is wonderful at listening to me and responding with appropriate comments, or at least faking it really, really well.

3.   Hugs, kisses, and “I love you’s.”  Not everyone wants frequent verbal and physical reminders that they are loved.  But a lot of folks do (even if they’re guys and are reluctant to admit it).   And if you’re on a budget: good news, they’re all free!  

As it happens, there are some Blogher bloggers out there who have some great insights and anecdotes about ways of bringing more love and appreciation in to their relationships.  

For instance, “An American Girl in the UK” has a lovely post over at I Say Tomato about the special way she and her husband celebrated their one month anniversary.  As she says, “the occasion had to be marked with some romance and just a wee bit of fanfare.”  And the tale is charmingly British, as it involves a Vicar, a cheeky rose bush, some fish and chips, and Dawn French.

And Dating Trooper has a great story of another special occasion over at Dating Is Warfare in which a saucepan, a can of tomatoes, and a resourceful and diplomatic boyfriend salvaged a milestone occasion in their relationship.

Also, would you like to find new appreciation for your partner or spouse?  Head over to True Wife Confessions,  where anonymous readers send in their (mostly wrenching) accounts of how they really feel about their husbands and marriages. And wow-- there are a surprising number of no-account, philandering, lying, bullying, lazy, insensitive louts out there!  However, some of the women’s confessions are not complaints at all, but are quite uplifting.  Here is an excerpt from Confession #2920:

“I want to thank you for being the person that makes me laugh my ass off daily.
I want to thank you for the endless cups of tea.
I want to thank you for knowing it's your hair that clogs the drain and being embarrassed about it.
I want to thank you for loving my daughter.
I want to thank you for wanting to hold my hand.
I want to thank you for your patience with my ex…”

And there is more there too!

So if this video turns out to be about how to get rugrats out of your hair long enough to lock the bedroom door and attend to “business time”, then sorry for the lack of tips!  But I’m also curious about how people manage to work more “love” in the broadest sense into their lives.