Phew! One more move under my belt.  Finding housing and moving around Yosemite this year has been a big project: now I have rented an apartment to stay in until summer, and I am thrilled to settle in one place for a while. My friends have all pitched in to help me make my moves, they have been so very gracious to help me. I recruited a young friend and coworker at Arch Rock ( the entrance station that I work at in Yosemite) to help me in this last one, and I promised to make him dinner as a payback. Two of my girlfriends came over for the dinner as well, and we had fun chatting about our world here in Yosemite. One of the topics that came up was dating. My friend Marla brought up the topic of the lack of eligible males for females to date here. Salvador, being the big-hearted Latin fella that he is, agreed with her. There’s just not ANY single men around here, and Marla said, but I can come up with 20 great single women in my head immediately! Where’s all the men? There’s NO men around here! Well, being the newest of the group to Yosemite and all that , I felt compelled to play Devil’s Advocate and to encourage exploration of another perspective on the topic.. Wait a minute….what do you mean? Are there just not any men around? Do the women really outnumber the men by so much? What do you think the ratio of men to women really is here? After several minutes of reflection, Marla said she felt it wasn’t a ratio of women to men issue, but she just couldn’t think of any single men in this area. So I challenged the group in the room to make a list of 20 single men in Yosemite. And we did. Only it took us awhile , because we had to discuss each one’s merits or (demerits as it were ) as we made the list. At first, they wanted to disqualify some of them, but I reminded them the task was to make a list of single men, period, and not just a list of men we liked .After we came up with number 16, we agreed to stop, as the point was clear, there were 20 single men here, just not maybe 20 single men we would consider desirable. I have to confess that there was one guy mentioned that I said I would definitely NOT turn away should he show up at my door! Which leads us to another point of our discussion, how is it that women are always lamenting the lack of good men, when men do not say there’s not enough good women? And, are women kidding themselves when they say that they are available and ready for a serious relationship, yet don’t find an available man or a good man? Are the men just being more honest when they say they don’t want a serious relationship? My point I brought up in all this was that I feel like, if a person desires a relationship and is not in one, it usually is because some part of them does not want to be in one, …….not because of a lack of single datable (hot?) men (or women) . I feel that there is a deeper part of them (their higher self ) that is ultimately in control and that part keeps them out of relationships, for the sake of its own agenda. And the conscious or personality part of themselves that wants the relation can voice its desires, but ultimately it is not in charge of their destiny. Some people could use other names for these parts of us, I have a friend who does hypnotherapy and she calls the parts “the committee” and urges her clients to realize the presence of all their parts and to learn to get them to work together towards a desired goal. I just feel that we have an agenda created by us and for us by Spirit (our higher selves) and that agenda isn’t always a known one. It may be of great need for someone to not be in a relationship even though the personality craves one and all that comes with it. So, once again the topic of personal responsibility rears its ugly head. It’s not numbers of available partners that dictates a persons chances of entering into a relationship, but the agenda of that persons higher self that keeps them either in or out of romantic relationships.  Just how can a person know what their higher self’s agenda is? Well, that would be a topic for the next dinner party. Stay tuned. Oh and by the way, the answer to the question “When will I find my love object standing at my door wearing nothing but a big red ribbon?” is, when Spirit ( higher self ) feels it’s the right time for such a gift to arrive! Should I look out for the Fed Ex truck?