Truth VS Seduction

 " I want this music and this dawn and the warmth of your cheek against mine" Rumi

       So I am reading this truly amazing book called if the Buddha dated: Finding love on a spiritual path. The book contains rumi quotes, Buddhist principles, and the concepts of loving kindness mashes it all together and bam your romantic views are changing. The main idea is Truth- Truth to you and what you are feeling and openness to all sides of yourself and the other person. That all sounds pretty frickin stellar to me. However it generally directly clashes with everything we are raised and programmed to believe since birth.
          For the past 2 years I have been on a path of self reliance and independence. I knew I would never be able to be in a strong stable relationship till I knew I could 100% care for myself and live joyously completely alone. "More then anything else, I want myself. I want to live with integrity and truth. I am not going to hide the jewel of who I am, nor will I mask my imperfections" (6). I became financially independent paying all my own bills and found ways to truly love myself when it's just me alone in my room thinking. It was hard work but essential to find my own unique standard that I want for my life.
       The problem then is finding the person who can fit into this life we have created. "Too often, we try to mold people into what we want them to be rather then honoring them as they are" (11). I am so beyond guilty of this- your trying to warp the person which never works... you either love all of someone or you don't really love them at all. Their light and their dark and all the grey in between bits. If you are uniquely you and they are uniquely them and together you uniquely match then everything finds it's harmony. Easy peasy right???
     The opposite of this idea of truth and open communication is mind manipulation and the art of Art of Seduction. The premise being that people fit into categories and you can easily get the result you would like by doing certain key things depending on what the person secretly desires for instance play the Coquette. They "are the grand masters of the game, orchestrating a back-and-forth movement between hope and frustration. They bait with the promise of reward the hope of physical pleasure, happiness, fame by association, power all of which, however, proves elusive; yet this only makes their targets pursue them the more. Imitate the alternating heat and coolness of the Coquette and you will keep the seduced at your heels." Wow not only does it explain "the type" it tells you more or less how to do it. 

       Think of Barney's playbook from How I Met Your Mother and you got a pretty good idea of what the book would look like played out in the real world with maybe a little more subtly because after all subtle suggestion is key to a seduction. An innocent example: I was new at my job and I new counselors were suppose to write no show receipts for their clients if they did not show up for their session. Knowing I needed Person A to write one but afraid to demand things on day 1 when he said "I can't believe my client didn't show!" I responded sweetly "isn't there something you need to do when that happens?" I looked over in his direction. "Ya write a receipt" he remarked I smiled "oh, oh! I see what you're doing there sneaky. well aren't you the queen of subtle suggestion." Yes, yes I am.
   The thing about playing little mind games is that there is no "truth" what so ever... except the truth that people are very mailable to being drawn in, persuaded, and seduced in general. Think of any major women in history or any great man and there was someone at their side whispering many ideas into their ears. Ya know what they say-behind every great man there's an ever greater woman and that's because one person in the relationship is always going to be one whose a little bit better as getting what they want. Games games games the book says “Desire is both imitative (we like what others like) and competitive (we want to take away from others what they have). As children, we wanted to monopolize the attention of a parent, to draw it away from other siblings. This sense of rivalry... makes people compete for the attention.”  So manipulation, games, and competition....damn that seems like a lot of work. It does "work" it really can (proof not discussed on the internet) but is that the kind of relationship you really want?
     So what appeals to you more truth or seduction???? Either way I got an amazing book that can lead you down the right path. Personally I'm torn I think one day when there is one person who I can truly trust and open up to and they in turn are willing and ready I will be all about truth. However now in LA when I'm looking for something more fun you may catch me in a small little flirtation that involves a small degree of manipulation- maybe.... i'm not admitting to anything!     ;)