I’m sorry—what did you say? Relationships all over the world are being tested due to the simple fact that most of us are at an age when our hearing is not what it previously was.  Selective hearing has progressed to,“ I don’t have a clue that you are even in the room”.  Wives can become frustrated, even annoyed,  (I think that is what you call it when you see fire coming out of women’s eyes?)  Since communication is a key part of any relationship, if your husband exists in a near soundless fog it IS impacting both of you negatively.

While riding with my dear friends recently I remarked, “where are you dinning tonight”, Robert replied, “no, we don’t know them”.  Where do I go from there?  His wife rolled her eyes, I was in hysterics.  (I have seen that reaction hundreds of times).  I have to repeat myself so much I am beginning to feel like a parrot—and yelling all the time gives me a headache.  My Mom can’t hear her cell phone ring when it is in her pocket, but assures me that she is not THAT hard of hearing—sure Mom.  Plus, isn’t it dangerous to think you can hear when you can’t?

Kissing is an exercise that is much too often wasted on the young, at least for the pre- boomer generation.  If you kept track of all the romantic kissing that you did in high school and college, and maybe when you were young and single, would it come close to adding up to the amount of romantic kissing that you have done in the past 40 years, ESPECIALLY if you’re married?  (Remember “suck face”, who started that, yuck!)  Kissing is an art: it combines passion, patience, pleasure, tenderness, restraint, surrender and control and wraps it into a warm and somewhat innocent way of exposing yourself to another human being.  Having just met a man that is an amazing kisser, (and I am not divulging his identity or his location, because I don’t want to have to deal with the line of women that would instantly appear outside his door), I am truly taken aback at the romance extended by a tender kiss.  

This simple statement catapults us into a myriad of related topics: soft lips, vulnerability, those that have kissing issues or deficits.  You’ve never heard of AKD, “adult kissing disorder”?  This is a syndrome usually applicable to smokers, people with hard lips or a total void of romance, and the patience of a nat. 

With cupid, (or Hallmark), encouraging us to take a look at our romantic commitments this month, I would encourage you to sit down beside someone that you love and kiss them in a way that shows your true devotion, admiration and attraction to them, especially if it is someone that you have been with for a very long time.  Having shocked the crap out of them, they will probably wonder what you are up to—tell them something just came over you.  (Actually, you can probably come up with something much better than that.