REAL LIFE: Sex, Love and Relationships Observations

Hello everyone… hope all is well. I create and developed the Real Life TV Series with the sex, love and relationships theme in 2008. I’ve interviewed around 1,500 men and women since it’s inception from various parts of the country. Talking to these folks; single, couples, married men and women have proven to be quite interesting.

Now on to facebook. I have over 5,000 facebook friends and over 1,600 fans on my Real Life: Sex, Love and Relationships TV page. If I had the time to copy and paste some of these status updates about sex, love and relationships you would either be on the floor laughing, in shock or in disgust.

With social networking we can be whoever we want to be online. Is it okay to assume whatever you write or display on your profile is really how you are? Yes! If I don’t know you outside of facebook why would I assume you’re any different from what you post, how you write it and interact with people on your page. I have nothing else to go by.

What still gets to me is the carelessness. With HIV and STD’s being out of control, hearing and seeing folks talk about hooking up with people they really don’t know is crazy. Selling sex on facebook… yes prostitution has hit the social networks even harder. Remember Black Planet? Anyway is it really worth it? I don’t have children myself but have listened to stories of men being invited over and engaging in sexual activities while children are present. I couldn’t imagine. I know we all are subject to temptation… but when that temptation is on the scales of life balancing against the risks, shouldn’t temptation lose? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being extremely careful.

Oh yeah… the constant talk about the lack of good men and so on. I would say 75% of the women interviewed would bring up the lack of good men phenomenon. I see it displayed on facebook all the time as well. When folks mention the lack of good men available, first… what made you ask that question to begin with? What’s your definition of “good”? Why were you involved with “not so good” men to begin with? What are your dating standards/expectations? Obviously in “your” world, you are subject to your own beliefs and values regarding relationships, family and life. Good to you may mean something totally different to someone else. There are plenty of “good” men and women out there but obviously not everyone catches your attention so you really have no idea if they’re good or not. In all honesty I’ve heard many men ask, “where are the good women”? The same thing applies.

Have you seen it as well where people are always talking about and describing the good man or woman they want to be with but always end up with someone totally opposite. Why does that happen? We all need be honest with ourselves in what we’re really looking for in a man or woman and stop throwing out that pointless generic question.

Let’s move on to fantasy. Yes fantasies… we all have had them, some folks unfortunately still live in fantasy land… what can you do? Well you can come back down to earth… that’s what you can do. There’s nothing wrong with having fantasies of course. Fantasies have moved the day along somewhat quicker, fantasies take our minds temporarily from the daily grind of reality, fantasies take us to a world of perfection. STOP! (the needle on the record slides across) Back to reality! To make myself clear… I’m not talking about sexual fantasies with your mate; I’m talking about people having fantasies about celebrities, stars and athletes.

Yes… in many interviews I noticed many women comparing their mate to a celebrity; describing their ideal mate, which happens to be a celebrity or athlete. I’m not asking anyone to agree or disagree this is what I have on tape. The funniest thing to hear is when people say they’re in love; I’m mean really in love with a celebrity whom they’ve never met. Someone who only gives the public a glimpse of themselves on television once in a while as opposed to who they truly are on a daily basis. The problem is, if you’re really comparing folks to the “magazine covers” you like… you’re probably going to be single for a while. You need to shift your focus to yes, reality.

Here we go again with infidelity. I believe about 90% of men and women interviewed have experienced cheating. They’ve been cheated on and/or have cheated themselves. Times have changed… over 15 years ago when asking people what would they do if their significant other cheated most of them would say “leave” or “end the relationship”. Today most said it depends on why they cheated and would try to work it out. Men interviewed would say, they just love sex and if a woman is coming on to them… why not? regardless if they were in a relationship or they weren’t getting it enough at home or was simply bored with what they had at home or knew they couldn’t be faithful from the beginning but wanted the benefits of being in a relationship anyway. Women would say they cheated before getting cheated on or cheated because they were cheated on or cheated because their mate couldn’t put it down sexually. In any case you chose to be with someone who is incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship. I heard someone say, everyone cheats these days. How many people actually believe that? Seriously.

The one word that we all stress is of course COMMUNICATION. It seems as if that word can solve many issues. First of all if you don’t know a problem exists then how can you solve it? If you know there’s a problem but fail to address it then that’s poor communication. I’m a communicator by nature myself but can’t expect everyone to be the same. It’s just so baffling when issues exist but folks do not want to communicate to resolve them.

In another article I wrote, how is it that people court each other, get married, buy a home, have children and then decide you are not the one for me? How is it that you meet a man or woman and this person is so wonderful, you almost forget who you are and then a few months later that person is horrible. What made this person go from being the best to the worst in a short period of time? More importantly why did the two of you decide to get together in the first place?

Always remember the choices you make will have a direct impact on your quality of life. Why is it that we know a certain direction may not be the best one but we go for it anyways? Why is it we know that person may not be the best choice for us but we decide to take the risk anyway? Why do we decide to take a chance and ruin a good thing to take a chance with something that is unproven? Why do we continue to give our heart to someone undeserving? Bottom line... if you want something different, you have to do something different. How do you expect to meet someone different if you continue to frequent the same places week in and week out, continue to hang around the same people week in and week out. You know... life is a series of lessons. We’ve all made mistakes but what’s important is what we learn and applying it to the next. I’ve made my share of mistakes but I’ve learned from them. Actually I make it a point to learn something new everyday (otherwise I take it personally) in addition to learning more about people, about life in general.

I would think most of us want a wonderful life. So why not make the best choices and surround yourself with the right people and of course God.

I’ll have a full season of Real Life: Sex, Love and Relationships ready by summer. It’ll be 15 30-minute TV programs on various issues related to dating, sex, love and relationships. Check out the Real Life: Sex, Love and Relationships TV page at www.facebook.com/reallifetv





Thanks,

Hamisi Robinson – Executive Producer