Pace Paw Print

Media Credit: mediacollege publisher.com "On Tuesday, February 12, Ellen Gootblatt spoke to Pace students about Sex and

Relationships, sex, and love: what do we truly know about any of those? Probably not all that much at this point in our lives, but we sure like to believe we know it all. So once in awhile our friends may have problems with one of these three topics, and we'll play psychiatrist for the time being-but that's not our job. Ellen Gootblatt, on the other hand, is an expert at relationships.

Gootblatt is known for her motivational speeches and for having a top rated talk radio show on the WABC network. She also taught in Harlem for 22 years.

Gootblatt travels to colleges across the country to speak from her heart about what she knows. She speaks of her ten premises in which she bases the success of human relationships.

On Feb. 25 in the Gottesman room, Gootblatt helped students understand how to handle and deal with relationships during college.

She began by discussing her own relationship, and told a story about her husband Murray. If you didn't believe in second chances before, I'm sure you could after hearing her story.

She dated Murray when she was 23 years old, and they stayed together for seven good years before they broke up. Sure, she moved on and met other people, but in 2003 they met again at a wedding and they started talking and eventually got back together.

On Jan. 25, 2004, Gootblatt was sitting with her friend when Murray took her hand, got down on one knee and proposed to her, completely surprising her. Four days later, they were married.

Four days is an extremely short engagement, but they both wanted to get married on Jan. 29 to honor her parents' anniversary. It's a cute story, and it shows us that second chances are possible.

After finishing her story, she went on to talk for well over an hour, but kept the audience interested with her high-energy style of communication and her constant reminders to keep all attention on her. She used a lot of her own experiences as examples, but also used the audience and pretended they were in a certain situation so she could relate it to us.

One of the ten premises she discussed was how relationships should make people feel. "Relationships are meant to be easy, not to tear your guts out," she said. She explained that relationships are meant to "enhance" us, rather than tear us apart inside.

Gootblatt went on to explain that many relationships don't work out because the parties involved are either too young and meet at the wrong time, or it's a case of "half person meets another half person." One whole person with another whole person combines two indestructible people, which works for a relationship. You can't have someone "complete you", but you can have someone join your completion to make you even stronger.

Even before you open your arms and heart for someone else, you need to find yourself first. Find out who you are and what you want before you try and give it your all with someone else. You have to learn to be ok alone. because being solo and being lonely are completely different. Gootblatt explained that if you're in a bad relationship, you can still feel loneliness.

Bad relationships are negative because they aren't right in the first place. If you give your best shot and it's still not enough for another person, then stop trying. Save your effort for someone who doesn't require you to work so hard. Gootblatt explains that you should find someone that likes you for "being you."

If you are in a relationship and things are rough, don't try to change the other person because that's just going back to not liking someone for who they are. If they ask for you to help them change, then by all means help, but don't try to force someone to be different. If you can learn to live with their flaws, then they will learn to live with yours. Nobody's perfect.

Before the relationship stage though, Gootblatt says the foundation of a great relationship is friendship. "Take your sweet time," she said. She spoke about waiting for the right person and "surrendering" yourself to them. If you can't "surrender" yourself to them and give them your all, then you're with the wrong person.

Love: what is it? Gootblatt talked about her relationship with her father, and how he never really told her he loved her, but she always knew. She said that he said "I love you" in his own language, and she went on to explain that she loved talk show host David Letterman, and her father loved Jay Leno. He would always call her and ask her if she watched Jay Leno, and she would always reply "No dad, I don't like Leno." But one day he called her and asked if she saw Letterman, and they talked about it. After awhile, he kept calling and asking if she saw Letterman until she finally asked him "what's going on, I thought you liked Leno?"

"I'm watching Letterman for you, that way we have something to talk about." That's love without saying it.

So don't freak out when someone doesn't say "I love you." Sometimes it's hard to actually say it, so people say it in their own language, the only way they can.

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