Note: I ain’t talking here about a man’s notion of “powerful.” We ain’t talking here about a negative-side-of-patriarchy notion of power—you know: bullying, simple strength, aggression or dominance.

We’re talking about the Buddhist notion of “powerful,” which includes vulnerability, being genuine, insecure but owning or being aware of that insecurity. We’re talking about a “powerful” without mere arrogance.

So how do we avoid generalizations, when characterizing the indefinable?

We write of lessons learned. ~ Way

Dear Brothers,

Don’t date a powerful woman…

…if you’re insecure.

If you’re insecure, but confident enough in that raw insecurity to be open and awkward in your communication, date a powerful woman.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you need to compete with her in order to feel okay about yourself.

Do date a powerful woman if you enjoy competition. It’s fun! Get exhausted together, then go home and make out on your mostly-made bed.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you’re impatient. If you’re clingy. If you’re upset with a lack of perceived respect in the little things, that are big things. I have been all of these things. So have you.

Do date a powerful woman if you are able to relax back into one’s wind-wafting inner being, just as a tiger, 10-feet-long, slides through the morning-dewed jungle grasses without a sound.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you are looking for respect for boundaries that you do not hold for yourself.

Say, she shares “powerful woman” quotes on her Insta, but has a history of dating domineering manboys who grotesquely mistreat her. There is no true attraction in being mistreated, though our immature selves mistake their lack-of-caring-for-us as non-attachment. Flag on the field! Not that she’s a bad person, but that her aspirations and her behavior have not grown to braid together, yet.

Say, you are both at a party but she wants to sit outside and you are already inside, you saved her a spot, you’re there with friends, she’s late…but she wants to sit outside by the fire with one friend, and she pays no attention to you, and then it’s over and that’s sad. Is that power? Or is that immaturity? If it’s immaturity in communication or respect, and we chase that, that’s our own lack of power, our own unaware insecurity.

Do date a powerful woman if you know the difference between immaturity in her (often distant, rarely communicates well) and power (often distant, communicates well).

Resting in one’s power requires dipping into occasional solitude.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you’re not comfortable out of the limelight, riding shotgun, playing number two, waiting your turn.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you are wedded to being the hero, being the martyr, rescuing the damsel in distress.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you aren’t comfortable not being paid attention to, doted upon. There is a cold-feeling distance to power, and you may want something easier, smaller, cozier, safer. Manageable.

Know what you are able to work with in relationship.

Know yourself—accept that, and challenge yourself.

This is your power.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you can’t own your emotional reactions, work through and process on your own…and then, too, relax with strength and easy confidence into full naked vulnerable delicious hot-to-the-touch intimacy. Do date a powerful woman if your sexual fulfillment is yoked to her sexual fulfillment, if slow and clean sweated mouth-watering stroking touching play, kisses just off Main Street against someone’s car, doing it again after just doing it because it is not orgasm, just, but the whole beginning to end, and beginning begins with the first moment you wake and remember, good god, she’s a golden wakeful presence in your daily life.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you aren’t willing to soften, and cherish, even as you let go, and hold strong. It’s like licking, never biting, the dark chocolate wafer.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you aren’t committed to making friends with your own sweet self.

Don’t date a powerful woman if your reference point is ego, or desire…rather than this present moment, and sanity, humor, and tenderness—many words to describe one thing.

Don’t date a powerful woman if you aren’t comfortable following, or chasing, or being left alone, or letting go yet again, or being confused and frustrated. Dating a powerful woman: like holding a flame, a flame that is everywhere and nowhere (it isn’t controllable), and you can’t hold it, only feel it, and it’s beautiful and enticing and warming…but if you hold this nothing and everything that’s everywhere and nowhere too tightly, yeah. You get burned and will fast learn the hard way the virtue in letting go!

Don’t date a powerful woman if you want a stale life.

Do date a powerful woman if you are open to being inspired by her windows-open fresh air.

Do date a powerful woman if you’re ready for her unrelenting example to release your own fundamental goodness, brilliance, humor…even and especially in the gray moments.

A powerful woman is not defined by me, or other men, or other women.

She discovers her own heart, and the power in it, and is equally comfortable curling up in an old armchair with a book on a Friday night as she is gathering 20 friends to listen to one friend pluck her guitar and warble her voice after a group-made dinner of good things sourced with love.

Do date a powerful woman if you want your story to only end with death, and even then..? Don’t date a powerful woman if you like your story how it is, and you want to steer this craft to shore. Do date a powerful woman if you appreciate watching an artist find her path, wending her way through the ordinary chaos of work and family and the busyness and celebration of daily life.

What are other reasons to date, or not date, a powerful woman?