Sjaak and I are interesting pair; him a 6’6” Dutchman who is an actor and artist by trade; and me a petite, black woman who grew up eating collard greens, grits, and cornbread. As a result, people often want to know how we met. I would too if I were them.

Here is our story.

I placed a personal ad on a dating site a couple of years ago. Not long afterwards, I received a flirt from a chap who lived in the Netherlands. I was unimpressed. You send flirts when you are too lazy to send a proper message. But I clicked on his profile, took one look at his cheekbones, and hit reply. In the end my shallowness paid off. What followed were months of emails. We discovered that we shared a similar philosophical outlook, interest in health and wellness, and are both devoted to personal development. Despite the multiple ways in which we clicked with each other, the reality was that we lived in different countries separated by thousands of miles. Furthermore, I was in the process of relocating to California and his profile said he wasn’t in a position to relocate.

After a failed attempt to meet up in person, our relationship mellowed into occasional emails. We tried to meet again, this time he was to visit me in California. When his plans didn’t pan out, our emails became even less frequent. At one point, he wrote to tell me that he was seeing someone. He hoped that we could still be friends, saying he valued our email exchanges. I was always open to the possibility of becoming involved in a romantic relationship with him. Yet, I had no expectations one way or another. And that’s exactly what I told him when I replied to his message. I had been dating other people all along and I continued doing so. Little did I know, his relationship was not destined to last.

I was growing more and more frustrated with the dating process. One day I counted the number of people I had dated since my divorce and was shocked. I dated a total of twenty-eight people. Why was I still single? At one point, I began to think that I was the problem. I feared that I was too educated, too smart, too successful, too ambitious, too attractive. Then came an equally unpleasant thought: that I was not enough of the aforementioned things. One day, something went off inside of me and I realized that I was just fine the way I was. Along with that realization came the knowledge that there was someone out there who wouldn’t be intimidated by fabulousness nor grossed out by my crustier traits. Once I turned that corner in my psyche, I began to attract very different types of men. In fact, there were four of them.  They were as confident, motivated, and consciously turned on as I was. Ultimately, we were not a good match for each other, but the point is that I saw first hand how my changed relationship with myself manifested itself externally bringing me closer to my equal partner.

I experienced another important shift. I was working to further development my ability to enjoy life moment by moment. I decided to extend enjoyment of what is to my relationships. In the past, I focused on the imperfections of the men I dated and what was lacking in our relationship. I replaced paying attention to the negative with focusing on what was enjoyable. For example, while I wasn’t keen on the fact that the chemist had a kid, I loved the way he moved his body and tossed his hair. The Argentinian was not interested in seeing me exclusively, but when we were together, I enjoyed the ease with which we communicated. And I loved that he cooked for me. The personal chef was far too busy to be anyone’s man, but I really dug the way he was so attuned with his feminine side. He radiated wonderful energy and he had an awesome ass.

I realized that focusing on the pleasurable aspects of each man would bring my closer to my partner. Indeed my Sjaak possesses all the things I loved in the mean I dated. Well, he has no hair to toss about, but he has a great smile and a deep voice that rumbles in his chest when he speaks.

Eventhough I had learned to relax and enjoy the men I was dating, I still longed for the one with whom I could experience a conscious, co-created relationship. Every morning, before my feet touched the floor, I prayed that my complement and I be brought closer together. I knew that each person I dated brought me closer to him. That knowledge further heightened my ability to enjoy the men I was with. This further stimulated by ability to attract my ideal partner.

The realization that I was loveable as is, finding enjoyment in my relationships (eventhough they were not perfect) were strengthened by my imaginative ability. I went through my weeks as if my partner and I were already together. When I walked around the lake, I imagined us holding hands with him towering over me. And at night, I imagined falling asleep in his arms. So potent were my imaginings that I could almost feel the pressure of his touch and the warmth of his skin.

Meanwhile, almost 10,000 miles away, Sjaakk was doing some dating of his own. He experienced frustrations as well. So frustrated was he, that he went to a spiritual adviser with the hopes of gaining insight as to where his partner was to be found. He showed up with a laundry list of characteristics he wanted her to have. His adviser promptly told him to cut the crap and just ask for an equal partner. Later that week, he created an altar representative of the sort of relationship and partner he wanted. Once the components of the altar were in place, he recited three times, “Bring me an equal partner.” Two weeks later, I showed up.

We spoke by phone for the first time in the days leading up to my arrival. His voice had a strangely familiar quality that was soothing and quite frankly, left me weak in the knees. Still, I wanted to remain as objective as possible about him. That objectivity went out the window when we saw each other in person for the first time. The attraction was immediate and intense. By the end of the first night, we were rolling around in the bed together. By the end of the third night, he asked me to be his girlfriend. Things moved much more quickly than either of us anticipated and there still remained the fact that we are citizens of different countries. Yet we both understood that our coming together was an organic process that could not be dictated or controlled. So we set aside our doubts and fears and set about building the equal partnership we both longed for.

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