Dating and Falling in Love | Page 9

you I am a
co-author, because I had been wanting to
write for years. I had been so frustrated.
Because of you, I finally began writing. I had
content, but I didn’t have a clue on how to
organize it. And Scott, you took me higher.
You take me higher every day.

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SCOTT: What could be better in dating and
falling in love than taking each other higher?

The sixth stage in dating and falling in love is
assessing equality in your relationship. It's
so easy to make the mistake of one person
becoming subordinate to the other. And
equality or inequality begins at the first
moment in a relationship.

We don't want to compromise love standards.
There needs to be equality. You deserve to be
honored, cherished, esteemed and
empowered in your entire relationship with
your lovemate. That's what equality feels
like.

SHANNON: Yes, and not belittled. Certainly
we don't want to give away control of our lives
to another person. It really boils down to
each person's fundamental view of love itself.
We live out our highest sense of love. Some
people's sense of love is a strange one. What
they call love is actually possession, or
controlling another with domination. This is
not love. It gets confusing to call this love
because it isn’t love at all. There is no
equality. Equality says, "I'm just as
supportive of you as you are to me." And it
shows up in small ways as well as big ways.
Each one is equally important.

SCOTT: It shows up in small ways. A couple
of the small ways, for example, is who drives?
Oftentimes it's customary for the man to do
all the driving. Well, that's not equality. The
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issue isn't whether Shannon drives more or I
drive more. The issue is, “Do we give each
other the opportunity?” Do we say, “Sweetie,
would you like to drive?” It turns out, and we
laugh about it, Shannon drives more than
me. But at least we talk about it.

SHANNON: At least we talk about it.

SCOTT: You know, we laugh about this. We
live by the beach. So when we go to one of the
beach restaurants looking out on the
beautiful ocean, we fight for the worst seat.
Even when we go with friends, they laugh at
us because we each want the other to have
the best view.

SHANNON: We really do.

SCOTT: And I watch couples coming into
restaurants, and I see so often that there's
not even thought given to it. Frequently, it's
the women who is seated in the most
subordinate position, just from custom, but
not always. And that's the thing that we do
that I think is small but it makes a difference.
Now also there's some big equality areas, too.

SHANNON: Yes, big areas such as equality in
sex, money, and dreams cherished.

SCOTT: Well, those are huge areas, and so
often that's where relationships fall apart.
Let's take the area of sex. Whose needs are
more important in love making, which is
obviously even more than sex. It's your whole
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relationship. But in true love making, which
includes sex, each person's needs are just as
important. And the only way you can know
that is by asking each other what your needs
are.

SHANNON: Yes, you can't assume anything,
because it's not your body.

SCOTT: And how often would you like to
make love? In what ways? All those things
are issues of equality. It's critical that you
each know what's in the other's heart. This
is where honesty comes into play, and
equality.

SHANNON: And on the subject of money,
when I dated, I always announced to my date
as graciously as I could, that I liked to pay for
half of the date. I wanted it friendship based
that would express itself equally. When
friends go out they split the ticket. For
example, I might go on a date and go to a
movie, and my date will pay for the movie,
and I'd go after the popcorn and cokes. It
really made me feel equal as a woman.
Afterwards, I didn’t owe the date something
in return.

SCOTT: It took a lot of pressure off me too, as
the man. I enjoyed that. It was a surprise
and it felt good.

SHANNON: