How to make love stay

“There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?  Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.”

~Tom Robbins

With that quote, Tom Robbins proposed a big and powerful question, a question about life and everything in it. It’s a question that gets right to the point and it got us to thinking, writing and wondering.

We don’t know the answer, but we needed to try and find it, if only to start the conversation. So, assuming love is a woman, this is how we’d make her stay.

1. Love her fiercely.

Connection is key, vulnerability is bravery, and an open heart breaks down closed souls. We only get one shot at this life, this moment, and this relationship. If you’re blessed enough to find yourself waking up next to the same love over and over and over again, please don’t think of it as blandness. Choose blessedness.

If you find yourself getting too used to the monotony of your daily existence or if the routine is becoming too obscene, change something. Mix it up. Add some spice. Run off and have an adventure, even if it’s just down the road. Go and see something you’ve never seen, even if it’s just across the street. Go and do something you’ve never done, even if it’s just under the sheets.

When you enter a room, let others notice that you notice her first. When you walk next to her, stop and kiss her neck for no good reason other than the fact that she is by your side. When she gets dressed in the morning, smile and appreciate that women are sexier getting dressed than they are getting undressed.

Respect her boundaries, but break down her walls. Crush her fears and free her mind. She’s yours, and it’s up to you to be hers. Be the hero she’s always wanted but never knew she needed.

Be a brazen inspiration. Be a bold revelation. Be a novel innovation. Earn her every day and appreciate her every night. Give her your heart and defend hers at all costs. Be a warrior for love armed with a quiver full of fervor, and love will forever follow you into the hunt.

“Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.” ~Tom Robbins

2. Make her feel beautiful.

This one is pretty simple: Girls want to feel beautiful. Unfortunately, as you probably already recognize, women are bombarded each and every day with images from TV, magazines, Facebook and everywhere else in our culture trying to show them and sell them beauty. “They should look good.” “They need to be put together.” “They must be presented well.”

That is total bullshit. Humans were not born to cover their faces in makeup, did not evolve to spend an hour straightening their hair with expensive machines, and did not arise solely to dress up in high heels, or expensive jewels, or an overpriced dress bought to attend that cocktail party that night with those people that we don’t really know and don’t even care about.

In our society, beauty most often relates to the exterior and although a variety of superficial modifications are now wildly popular, they are all, each of them, a small, dirty, and pathetic lie.

Diamond rings are not beautiful, an open heart is beautiful. New shoes are not beautiful, kindness is beautiful. Vulnerability is beautiful. Compassion, honesty, courage and confidence are the real beautiful things.

Besides, even with all of the makeup, accessories and clothes in the world, you cannot be beautiful if you do not feel beautiful. Similarly, if you feel beautiful, you are beautiful. It really is that simple.

So, take these powerful ideas and go about setting them free into the world. Make your girl feel beautiful. Compliment her soul. Look her in the eyes when you tell her you love her. Hold her hand. Melt her heart. Be her beacon. When she wakes up in the morning, tell her she looks great, and when she laughs or calls you crazy (and she will), mean it when you tell her that you mean it.

Stare into her eyes until she looks away first. Let her soar, and admire her in flight. Open her eyes, heart, hopes and dreams. Write her a note that says she makes you feel lucky, leave her a voicemail that says she makes you feel blessed and make her a card that says she makes you feel beautiful.

After all, beautiful things create beautiful things. So go ahead and be beautiful together, and love will stick around to watch.

“The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.” ~ Tom Robbins

3. Make her feel safe.

Girls like being held. They like having arms wrapped around them, simultaneously holding them close and pushing the world away. They enjoy walking with someone that can connect with them, confiding in someone who cares for them and loving someone who adores them. Girls like knowing that they are enough for us, that we are not looking elsewhere for replacements.

Girls want to matter, so let her feel comfortable speaking her heart. When she does, listen. When you listen, understand (not just what is being said, but why).

When you understand, relate and remember. Become fluent in the language she speaks. Encourage her to be the best her possible, even if that means exposing the hard truths that she tries to avoid, the facts that she can no longer ignore.

It’s up to you to make her see that, ultimately, no one else will make her happy but her. It’s up to you to help her help herself. Earn her trust and then keep making deposits, because helping a woman feel safe empowers her to do the things that her heart tells her they need to be done.

When she is not worried about you or her or us, she is free, an uncaged bird, and freedom is a wondrous feeling. Freedom means safety, safety is liberating, and liberation leads to fearlessness.

Without fear, we can focus on the things that matter, the things that set our hearts alight, the dreams that only arise when we are awake.

Catalyzed by safety, dormant ideas awaken, embolden and enliven our life. Compassion, courage and honesty, love’s three younger sisters, will stop by to visit, helping to ensure that our women are as safe and as strong as possible. Why is this important? Because strong women make men strong. And strong men can make love stay.

“When two people meet and fall in love, there’s a sudden rush of magic. Magic is just naturally present then. We tend to feed on that gratuitous magic without striving to make any more. One day we wake up and find that the magic is gone. We hustle to get it back, but by then it’s usually too late, we’ve used it up. What we have to do is work like hell at making additional magic right from the start. It’s hard work, but if we can remember to do it, we greatly improve our chances of making love stay.” ~ Tom Robbins

 4.  Make her feel important.

There’s a lot going on in the world and we are always on alert.  We have to deal with jobs, laundry, stress, temptation, money, family, friends and the future.

Distractions pervade. Opportunities proliferate. Obstacles present themselves. We have the internet in our pockets, a gleam in our eyes and no time on our hands. We’re often busy, occasionally stressed, and sometimes overwhelmed. We have much on our minds and to us, normal is nuts.

We have dreams and adventures ahead of us and sorrow and sacrifice behind and yet, through all of the drama and strife, the pains and the panics, the days and nights, love remains. She is there, next to you, urging you on, smiling, and wanting nothing but the best for you because she loves you, she cares about you, and she wants you to be happy.

She is a best friend, mentor and biggest fan all in one. Your life would be worse without her in it. You would miss her if she were gone. She is the best thing in your world. Don’t you ever fucking lose sight of that, and love will have no chance to escape.

Love is addicted to appreciation and awareness. Keep both in abundant supply and love will always be near.

“My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.” ~Tom Robbins

 5. Fuck her good.

Here’s the thing: Women love sex and they think about it all the time. Although they would probably never admit it, women love getting down and dirty between the sheets, fast and furious on the bathroom floor, and slow and comfortable up against a wall.

If you’re a woman, you’re probably smiling as you read this. I’m sorry, girls, but the secret is out. We know that you talk about sex with your friends, fantasize about foreplay when you’re alone, and dream about the dirty when you are bored at work. And that’s okay. It’s more than okay, in fact.

Sex is important and good sex is a universal human right. So, do your best to be your best, not only in life but also in bed. However, don’t forget that it’s far more than just the physical that matters: the most important sex organ is the brain.

Be giving, with words and touch. Be intimate, with emotions and experience. Be thoughtful, with deeds and desires. Seduce her away from her distractions. Excite her.

Good loving is a necessity and if your girl is not getting it from you, she’ll start looking elsewhere for greener pastures to fertilize. However, if you can make her shake like a freight train, she’ll stick around like a memory. And that’s what it is all about – making love stay.

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.” ~ Tom Robbins

6.  Make her laugh.

Cyndi Lauper was right: Girls just want to have fun.

Have you ever seen a bunch of girls going absolutely buck wild on a dance floor? It’s a sensation, and fun is the feeling. Have you ever witnessed a group of girls laughing so hard that they’re snorting and crying and madly screeching right up close into each others faces? It’s a sanctuary, and fun is the preacher.

Life is hard, and that’s a fact. We all know that sadness comes by to play hide and seek, sorrow randomly stops by for a drink, and occasionally, we get overwhelmed, annoyed, or infuriated. It happens. It’s unavoidable. It’s not her fault.

Being down does not make her a bad person, or a bad partner, or a pain in the ass. Being down does not make her heart any smaller or her beauty any less noticeable. Rather, being down is part of lifting up.

Help lift her up. Help make her see. Teach yourself the powerful and noble truth that here is nothing more beautiful than a smiling soul staring at you with love-filled eyes. Make her smile. Warm her heart. Be silly.

Life is far too serious to take seriously and sometimes the bravest thing you can do is laugh.

So do it, and do it often. Goof around. Be playful. Have fun. Locate your inner child and give him a high five. Find some grass and do some somersaults. Enjoy the ride and love will sit next to you, its head on your shoulder, smiling all the while, for where there is laughter, there is love.

“But do we know how to make love stay? I can’t even think about it. The best I can do is play it day by day.” ~ Tom Robbins

Did we miss anything? Do you have an idea of your own? Let us know. We demand answers, we crave knowledge and we are addicted to realizations.

Serve it up hot and let’s dig in: How do you make love stay?