Love and Dating Baby Boomers

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The Changing Meaning of Love

When I was in my twenties and teaching undergraduate freshman at Boston University, I would assign a definition essay with one of the options being to define love. Of course, I knew that young writers could go all over the map with that, an exercise in focus control on the one hand and futility on the other. Yet now, here I am a decades later, attempting to define not merely love, but love specifically for dating baby boomers.

In the interest of “focus” here, two words come to mind: change and reflection. When I think of love and change, I first remember how much the sexual revolution of the 1960’s re-defined our behavior as lovers; at the time, I observed the “sexual revolution” as an extreme shift from ultra conservative behavior to full tilt free love expression.  And the shift didn’t seem unnatural — but at the same time, to say some of us were delightfully confused is an understatement.

Upon further reflection of how love has evolved from then until now, however, I realize how dramatically my own views on love and how it is expressed have changed, how much love for me has expanded to include both love and dating as a context for growing.  For me, this includes the difficulty of making choices when love’s reality doesn’t measure up to expectations; it includes establishing critical boundaries that are needed to honor differences and create a safe and fruitful space to express love.  I guess when you get right down to it, love for dating baby boomers means having a desire for peace above all, making passion a more gentle expression and time a friend rather than an enemy.  In this sense it has become so much larger, so much grander and so much more important, and its power to determine one’s own life continues to be immeasurable. 

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