From *eMAIL to eMATE* April 15, 2004
“I’d like to find a partner who dances. Do you?” my profile on Match.com asked. My now-husband Drew emailed that he was willing to take lessons, and that was enough for me. Non-dancer Drew’s courage to put himself out on the dance floor and to show in lesson after lesson his amateur status was truly impressive. We took private dance instruction for a year before our wedding, and as a result, got around the dance floor quite gracefully at our reception.
Women are dying to dance. Any man who can ask a woman to dance, then take charge of what happens on the floor and move relatively smoothly to music, has enormous appeal. Fat or skinny, short, tall, or not even close to attractive, even old, old, old, a man who is comfortable on the dance floor has his pick of the ladies.
For whatever the reason, dancing intoxicates. Especially women.
Few men can really dance, and those guys are on the floor constantly. Some men think they can dance and do get up, ask the ladies, and have fun. But at least half the men sit or stand uncomfortably on the sidelines with all the women who wish to be on the dance floor.
We women don’t get to dance nearly as much as we’d like to, even the ladies who are good dancers. There aren’t enough dancing men to go around. You can almost feel the yearning, the sadness, and the disappointment in those women and between those non-dancing couples.]
I personally know three women close to my age who met their now- spouses on the dance floor, and those ladies were great catches! Gentlemen and ladies, there’s a message here.
Guys:
1. Take lessons and learn how to dance. Leading well takes skill, but if Drew could learn how, so can you.
2. Go to dances.
3. Ask women to dance. Lots of women. They’ll love it. Even if you aren’t so good, they’ll appreciate your efforts.
Dance lessons themselves are good places to meet women, and most dance studios have regular parties for their students to practice what they have learned.
Ladies:
1. Take dancing lessons yourself and learn how to follow. Here I was, 50 years old, thinking I loved to dance, and I had no idea how to do the woman’s part! Following takes skill! You have to figure out what your partner has in mind for you to do in a split second, and then actually do it, all while dancing backwards.
2. Buy yourself some real ballroom dancing shoes, maybe with high heels. Believe it or not, those shoes are comfortable. They have to be. Not only do they look very sexy, they stay on your feet!
3. Hang out at dances, too, if you like to dance. Single guys go to dances.
If you are connected to a dance studio, other single women will be at their parties as well as the studio instructors and male students, so you will know people. Dance parties are safe and comfortable for single women.
Guys—nothing enhances as man’s romantic marketability more than becoming a decent dancer. Learning to dance is cost efficient and relatively painless. No surgery or blood loss, no sweaty hours at the gym, no personality makeovers needed. Just dance lessons.
What’s stopping you? Look up the dance studio nearest you and make that call! You’ll become a dancing babe magnet!
The longer you have been single, the more used to the single state you are and the more likely it is that you will stay that way.
I don’t have any research to back me up on that, but frankly I am pretty sure that is so. Particularly if you have never been coupled (living together for a year or more) or married before at all.
It’s pretty hard in our culture to have managed not to marry at least once by the time you are 35 or 40, if you are heterosexual. The pressures to couple and marry are fierce. In fact, you probably worked a bit to stay uncoupled, either avoiding dating at all, or getting out of developing relationships before committing.
Being and staying single is what you know how to do. Your thoughts and behaviors keep you that way. And you will probably stay single without putting in enormous effort to get different results.
Interestingly, singles are often unaware of what they do that keeps them single.
Most folks have some ambivalence about looking for love. Ambivalence means having thoughts, feelings, or actions that are in contradiction to each other, like love and hate. Because it is hard for us to keep two conflicting thoughts or emotions conscious and in focus, we are often aware of only one side of the ambivalence. Therefore, you may think and believe that you want to find a partner, that you are willing to do anything in order to get one, but you may also be equally unsure or not wanting to give up your single privileges, and you act unconsciously to undermine your best efforts to get what you think you want.
What might you be doing that undermines your finding love?
If you are stumped, take a hop over to my readers’ “50 Ways to BLEEP Your Lover” for a funny take on the question. But I’ve got some serious suggestions that might be indications of ambivalence:
 You do nothing that will move you towards finding love.
You think that love should “just happen” with no effort on your part.
You are always “too busy” in the present and vow to start sometime in the future when you have time. But that time never comes.
Perhaps you are listed on a dating site, but you do not post a photo. Or your profile essay is negative or otherwise poorly written.
You never make the first contact to potential partners.
You are critical of those who contact you.
You do not answer first or later emails promptly, waiting days or weeks to respond.
You complain about how much time Internet dating takes and the poor quality of people on your dating site.
You have long lists of “must have’s” and “deal breakers” that eliminate just about everyone.
Your schedule is so full that it is next to impossible to arrange even a coffee date.
You don’t show up at the first meeting, or you get lost, or you are late, or you change plans multiple times and then complain when your date backs out.
You are negative and critical at you first meeting, complaining about other dates or your ex.
You focus on some small detail that totally turns you off to your date, like he is balding or she is a little heavier than her pictures indicated, or he doesn’t talk easily, or she can’t spell.
You do not express positive interest, even if you are interested, and leave getting in contact again after that meeting to your date.
You consistently are not interested in people who are attracted to you, are reasonably healthy emotionally, and are truly available for a relationship.
You are interested in complicated, artistic, wealthy, elusive, moody, or eccentric people who perhaps are married or otherwise paired, or never married, alcoholic or drug-addicted, unemployed or deviant.
You expect your partner to make your life exciting. But exciting may really be a synonym for scary.
Well, as you probably can guess, I could go on and on. But I am sure you get the picture.
Now, if you keep reading, fair warning: I’m going to spoil it for you. You won’t be able to use your old excuses as reasons why you are single.
You are the reason. The consistent factor in your staying single is you.
And it’s not because you are fat or short or bald or use a cane to get around. Plenty of short, fat, bald, lame people are in relationships or married. The fact that you aren’t one of them is you.
Ugh. That’s the bad news, hard to hear and not easy to deliver, believe me. But there’s good news, too, because if you are the reason you are single, then you can do something about it.
Are you able to buy your clothes off the rack and they fit perfectly? Or do you have as hard a time as I do finding things that fit? I have NEVER been able to get a good fitting pair of jeans. What I learned to do is to buy them to fit in the waist and then get out my sewing machine and take in the hips.
Even then, they are not perfect. Frankly, I’d about given up.
Imagine my surprise when I found a website where I could get jeans custom made (the term to describe them is “bespoke”), and priced so that I didn’t have to take out a loan. Not only could I get my odd dimensions covered in denim, I could pick the particulars, like the color of the denim and the number of pockets. Even better, when the new jeans came in the mail, I found out if they did not fit perfectly, I could get a new, adjusted pair made at no extra cost!
Come on! I’ve got to be kidding, right?
No, I’m not. And I’ll never be jeanless again. I’ve got that site bookmarked.
The Internet is fantastic for finding things like custom made jeans, recipes for Mint Juleps, and now romance. But you know, there’s something about the ability to find what you want online that I think sets singles up to be disappointed. Maybe you have been disappointed, too. Here’s how that happens:
Like with my custom-made jeans, dating sites encourage us to get very specific about what we are looking for, all the factors we think will make a good fit for us as a partner. We can put in the measurements, the religion and race, the location, even down to eye color, of our fantasy date. And then with just a click on “Seach,” magically, we see all those who the perfectly fit our parameters. Maybe.
Many of us have very specific ideas about what we are looking for mate-wise. After all, we have been thinking about Mr. or Ms. Right for a very long time. But here’s the bad news: It’s a fantasy! And our ability to find what we want on the Net (like those custom-made jeans) coupled with the way dating sites work encourage us to think that we will be able to order up exactly the kind of man or woman we want in our heads. And he or she will be perfect, just like our fantasy, right?
Of course, we also have our romantic mythologies, too, that encourage us to believe in Prince or Princess Charming. Do you have a story in your head about how love should go that you compare all your dates to? One guy I coached said “I think if she were the right one I’d be thinking about her all the time and always want to jump her bones.” All the time? What about work, or when you are in the middle of a good book?
Behind the photos, behind the essays, are real people, with flaws and warts, just like you’ve got. If you get too hung up on your perfect fantasy, coupled with the illusion that the Internet and dating sites feed – that your fantasy really exists and that somehow you deserve it – you will be disappointed over and over. It’s a great way to stay single.
Get real and get reasonable about what you are looking for – and what you reasonably will be able to attract – in a partner. Think about the Rolling Stones’song: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need.”
I’ll bet you thought that you heard the end of Christine after How Find-a-Sweetheart.com and Romance Coaching got started, Chapter 1.
Well, there is more to Christine’s story, and here it is:
Christine wasn’t completely scared off. Every couple of years or so, she would get in touch and take a gingerly step towards the romance pool. We’d work on a profile essay. Once, we took lots of pictures, some of which were really good. She’d look around online and maybe see one person that interested her. But for many reasons, that’s as far as things got, at least as far as I knew. Maybe there was a lot she didn’t tell me about, for fear that I would jump back in and terrify her again. I had learned to modify my approach considerably, but Christine wasn’t about to try it out.
Also, though Christine and I were old friends, personality-wise, we are very different. I tend to decide on a direction and move fast. A definite rabbit. Christine is much more cautious, but she gets where she is going, slow and steady. A tortoise.
So here’s a part of a newsy email Christine sent a couple of weeks ago:
My news is that I am dating someone. The bad news is that he is 15 years older but the good news is that we have fun together. The bad news is that he lives three hours away. Too far for dinner out but close enough to get together on weekends.
WHAT???
Email was not fast enough. I called Christine. NOTHING I had heard recently made me more excited. Christine has a boyfriend.
She did not meet him on Match.com. A recently widowed 84 year old, he is Christine’s younger sister’s father-in-law. Since Christine’s husband was 20 years older than she, this guy is a relative spring chicken. He clearly spotted Christine, liked what he saw, and made the first moves. She was willing, they both seem able.
As Christine says, “It is really nice to have someone who want to hold your hand.”
How about that? I am SO happy for Christine and her new beau. I don’t know how much (if anything) I have had to do with the results, but one thing I DO know, and so does Christine: I have been cheer leading her all the way!
On the ride back home from Birmingham, I filled Drew in on the content of the workshop. I told him about Ben’s discussion of niche markets: an Internet based business would reach such a wide audience that specialization would help potential customers sort themselves out. I said I thought it would be interesting and fun to work with singles who wanted to find partners. I’d like to learn more about Internet dating and help singles learn how to use it to find love. Just like I had tried to do with Christine.
A Romance Coach was born, though I didn’t have the vocabulary to name myself that just yet.
The training started in February, online and on the phone, and last six months. Additional courses would span the next couple of years. I jumped ahead of my classmates, putting up a basic website and starting an enewsletter in just the first couple of months. Find-a-Sweetheart.com was born, *eMAIL to eMATE* named and the first issues published. A mailing list started growing, I presented classes, and started talking to real live people who wanted help finding love.
Ten years later, I am still at it. I have helped hundreds of people directly, thousands via my website and *eMAIL to eMATE*. Many of the people I have talked to are now married or are in relationships.
There is no better business to be in than to help people find love.
Fast forward to January 2002. Keep in mind that this was just a few months after 9/11, when we all were thrown for a huge loop. As well, Drew and I had crises in our own family that had required the full attentions of us both. We needed something good to happen.
In 2002, I had been a psychotherapist for 25 years. I had started three private practices (Maine, Florida, and Mississippi), and while I love being a therapist, it was grueling, kept me tied to one location, and was frankly depressing. I had heard about life coaching and was intrigued: I liked that it was positive, future oriented, and best of all, could be done anywhere via the Internet and phone.
I got a brochure in the mail advertizing a workshop by MentorCoach on coaching aimed at mental health professionals. I could tell that it was a promo for an intensive—and expensive – training program.
I was feeling poor (remember that 9/11 had a negative financial impact for many people) and also questioning the quality of the program being offered. I was very skeptical. To help me decide, I asked Drew to come with me – the workshop was being held in Birmingham, Alabama, four hours away.
Ben Dean, the MentorCoach founder, presented, and that guy is GOOD. Drew checked him out at lunch and was also impressed. By the end of the day, all that stood in the way for me signing up for the training program was the fee, a hefty $2,000+.
But…fate stepped in. At each of the workshops that Ben Dean presented, he drew a name from the attendees and gave away the tuition for the course.
I won.
I couldn’t believe it.
I had no reason at all NOT to go ahead with the training.
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