Telling the Hollywood Dream To Buzz Off.

[ladislav]

“Do not look for love, but let love find you. When you look hard for it, it will not appear, but when you stop, and least expect it, it will, like a gentle butterfly, land upon your shoulder!�
Whoever came up with this saying is insane! Most if not all of us are here on earth as a result of arranged marriages which were practiced for uncountable generations. And in the majority of the world they still are arranged. Somehow people do not leave things to the capricious chance. Actually most people, of following this advice will find that if they expect love to happen, it will not, and if they don’t expect it to happen, it won’t again.
In some societies, people of a certain age, looks, race etc can meet others easily, but in many societies they cannot approach people just like that because of social, racial/ethnic, religious and even legal restrictions. And most certainly, they can’t just sit and wait. Cause nothing will come. As in zilch, nada, not one darn thing, not one person.
For those people who cannot attract the opposite sex because of the factors above, whether they are expecting or not to find it, proactive pursuit is the recommended course of action. People now, for one, can openly advertise online and these people are not losers, they are winners because they no longer believe in the mercy of some fickle fate. People who travel to other countries to find markets for themselves are also courageous winners. But those who believe in the nonsense saying initially quoted are sorely misled.
In the so called liberated Western societies, women can easily find partners, but not guys because guys can be charged with verbal assault, sexual harassment and other such things if they court a girl. In the college period, things happen a bit easier but again, only for those who are most attractive. For many people, if they are not in the right clique and not the right age/race, looks, the waiting or non waiting for the butterfly to land on their shoulder is cruel mockery and a false religious teaching. I say- do not buy into that philosophy. Actively pursue love and do so globally!
With the advent of online dating and cheap international travel, you now must add the countries in the world where people like you are in demand and where many persons of the opposite sex are interested in you. For Western guys it is SE Asia, E. Europe and S. America. For Western women, it is the Mediterranean and Africa/the Caribbean.
Looking for love is like looking for a job. You go to where jobs are and where they pay well. If there are not that many jobs in your area, you go somewhere else. I will give you this example. I was looking for a well paying job in California. I applied in many places, filled out resumes, etc, but got very little response and what I got was of low quality. I then contacted Middle East employers and, very quickly, offers with tickets, paid housing and great salaries came my way.
I approached American women but the ones who were even moderately attractive hissed back at me like a cobra that had been disturbed from its sleep. I felt I was intruding. I then decided to not pursue anything and not to expect. But no butterflies landed on my shoulder. Then I could not take it anymore and I went to SE Asia and I was now in demand. So, Hollywood dream, I am gonna have to tell you to buzz off and not to come back again cause I am building my own dream based on what my eyes see and what my brain is figuring out! I date globally, I am proactive and I wait for no handouts from your false fate god.
So, just buzz off!

[ijohn]

Agreed. The most egregious example of this stupidity is the movie Serendipity. The two characters run into each other, she leaves him a clue in a book or something like that and if circumstances bring them together it is meant to be. They spend the rest of the movie waiting for this to happen, going through many near misses. Everytime she appears heartbroken, but could she have just gone ahead and exchanged numbers in the first place. No, of course not.

Men, don't fall for this stupidity. Any woman who plays these kinds of stupid games is not worth the trouble. This we have already covered.

That is a stupid romanticism that will only leave you feeling frustrated and empty.

But there is a germ of something in the "do not look for love let love find you"

What we seek or what is worth seeking is the experience of wholeness not happily ever after. When you look for love, look for the experience of wholeness, not happily ever after. If you seek happily ever after for yourself and she seeks the same well what is the probability it will last? Zero. There will always be issues. For a brief while your happily ever after might conincide with hers. Then it will not. There are enough threads here of americans who found a partner in whichever corner of the world and were shocked, just shocked, that it didn't become 'happily ever after'. There were still issues, oh how could there be? That was not how the script was supposed to be. Strangely enough life continued, some things seemed to fit, some didn't as they always will anywhere. And the typical response is simply to get up and leave.

This is the hallmark of post modernists - the outside world is only to be evaluated as to its use for our internal state of happiness, and so you will notice that people like this constantly talk about themselves and their feelings, they are actually rarely ever happy and usually coming up with a long list of judgements as to what was wrong with everything that impinged on their state of happiness.

There is a nice tradition in India. At new years time people are told to eat a piece of jaggery (sweet) wrapped in a neem leaf. The neem leaf is bitter in taste. It also has good medicinal properties. Meaning they are going to accept the bitter and the sweet in the year to come.

So dump the serendipity rubbish of course, and dump the happily ever after too. Look for wholeness, not happily ever after. When you do you will be drawn to those who have intuitively understood this and who give you this sense of wholeness.

[globetrotter]

Agreed.

I am a Man.

I guarantee you that if I wait for something to happen the only thing that will happen is this:

NOTHING.

If I do not do it, it won't happen.

Simple as that.

[ExpeditionSailor]

The old saw, "If you go looking for love, you won't find it" is extremely illogical. Would you say to yourself one day, "I want a dream car, dream house, dream job, etc., and if I go looking for it, I won't find it"? Would you simply believe that any of those things would fall into your lap magically because somehow it's your destiny to have them?

Of course not. The reality is that if you don't go actively looking for the things you want, not finding/getting them is guaranteed. Salesmen have to go prospecting daily to find new customers. If they don't, they will starve. Simple as that.

The only exception to the rule of course, is trying to find a North American woman who will really love you for who you are, not your wallet. Women in the West generally are so screwed up these days, your chances of finding love are as good as they would be if you sat at home and did nothing. Or if you bought a lottery ticket.

[Enishi]

That adage about "looking" for love is true in the sense of one unconsciously looking for external circumstances to heal a deep wound in their soul and thus feel accepted.

In terms of actually finding someone physically though, yes, a man does have to actively look.