Reflections on Dating Great Women: How Relationships Should Flow Like Music

By Marcal Graham EdD

Dre Anderson realizes his life has slipped away from him because he’s devoted so much of it to working and climbing the career ladder. He longs for more fulfilling relationships and experiences.

Anderson falls into a deep sleep at his desk and can’t wake until he completes a journey of self-reflection and finds meaning in his life. Eight women hold the keys to his happiness and emotional maturation in the future. To grow, he must look backward to reclaim his current reality and come away with a new perspective on life. He realizes dancing is a metaphor for life.

In Reflections on Dating Great Women, author Dr. Marcal Graham offers a fictional story of Dre Anderson to help individuals see relationships as learning and growing experiences rather than as wins and losses on a scoreboard. In addition, it provides a level of urgency and understanding to those who feel dating is random or has no long-term implications.

This self-help book offers an opportunity to create a personalized reflective journal, a workbook to capture thoughts that allow you to understand how the past impacts your future. The guiding questions provide the foundation for assessing your choices in life and opening new chapters so you can intentionally live each moment to the fullest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663260024

Marcal Graham EdD

Dr. Graham brings his unique spin or thinking on relationships between men and women. While he is not a relationship expert or coach, he is a student and advocate dedicated to forging successful relationships and aspires to one day become a relationship advisor and counselor for those who want to find success before marriage. If one can develop some of keys to successful pre-matrimony bliss than there is strong likelihood, they will find success once they cross that bridge.

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Copyright © 2024 Marcal Graham, EdD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-6001-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-6002-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024901868

iUniverse rev. date: 02/19/2024

Contents

Preface and Introduction

Chapter 1 The Career and Life Struggle: The Desk, Destiny, and Distraction

Chapter 2 COVID-19 Impact on Thinking and Life

Chapter 3 Women and Music: One and the Same

Chapter 4 Who Is Dre Anderson?

Chapter 5 Dancing as a Form of Therapy and Healing

Chapter 6 The Dynamic Eight

Chapter 7 Aries (Rhythm and Blues)

Chapter 8 Rachel (Smooth Jazz)

Chapter 9 Silvia (Hip-Hop)

Chapter 10 Vanessa (Classical)

Chapter 11 Monica (Soft Rock)

Chapter 12 Rosa (Salvadoran Hip-Hop)

Chapter 13 Lia (Gospel)

Chapter 14 Dana (Afro-Caribbean)

Chapter 15 Conclusion: What Pathway Is This Leading Me Down?

References

Preface and Introduction

Finding Music in Your Relationships

This book is the intersection of dancing, music, and relationships from a man’s perspective. This is not your typical man meets woman and they live happily ever after story. This is a spiritual journey that should happen before we even think about getting married or settling down or engaging in couples’ therapy sessions. The reason for this journey is because we must do some soul-searching to arrive at a place of peace and personal transformation.

This book does not claim to have all the answers but is meant to be a resource of deep thought and reflection. Each relationship may reveal a different part of you that you have kept dormant or suppressed. These romantic relationships are important because they help shape and grow our perspective and understanding of what successful relationships require of us. My perspective has been shaped by these experiences enough for me to see the need to write about them and share them with the world. Consequently, the book is based on real-life relationships, experiences, and situations, along with some creative freedom—that is, fictional moments, which have been infused to allow readers to connect with the various perspectives and fully understand the characters in the book.

Only through ongoing reflection can we move forward. For this to take shape, we must engage in a process where we start posing informed questions to ourselves. Who determines the right questions though? The answer is very simple. We do, because every individual and relationship is different and dynamic in nature. This journey is far from just an emotional or physical one; it is an evolving process that helps us all grow and find peace in life. This book is meant to be serious, funny, reflective, and instructional to us all. The hope is that it moves you to think about how and why people come into your life. The starting point is looking within you and angling a mirror at your inner self and motivation. The beauty in dancing is it comes with freedom, energy, happiness, and transformation. In addition, dancing comes with no regrets or reservations about the moment in question.

Nothing in life happens by chance. One Sunday morning,